How Did Wilton Park Survive into the Twenty-First Century?

Abstract

Wilton Park from its inception at the end of the Second World War has been a part of or closely related to the Foreign (and Commonwealth) Office, but it has never in its various manifestations done FCO work in any direct way. Its value, which is and has been immense, has in fact been derived from this irregular situation. However, it has consequently been regularly open to the complaint that government and specifically FCO funding should not be used for such ill-defined purposes. This contribution explains how and why Wilton Park survived such threats into the twenty-first century and flourishes today.

Acknowledgements

This contribution relies on personal knowledge and very extensively on information to be found in R. Mayne, In Victory, Magnanimity, In Peace, Goodwill: A History of Wilton Park (London: Whitehall History Publishing in association with Frank Cass, 2003). This is a very full account and, apart from some fairly scrappy recollections by others, is the only source for studying the evolution of Wilton Park.