In the Service of His Majesty: The British Consular Service in Black Sea Ports. Administration and Personnel (1825-1842)
In the Service of His Majesty: The British Consular Service in Black Sea Ports. Administration and Personnel (1825-1842)

Summary/Abstract: “Whilst French research has recognized the importance of the consuls as the 'eyes and ears' of their Foreign Office, little, if any, study has been made of the role of the British consuls.” This perspective from the introduction of Lucia Gunning՚s doctoral thesis1 explicitly summaries our concerns about the history of British consular service in Black Sea ports in the first half of the nineteenth century.Therefore, the purpose of this text is to write a narrative of its institutional history, in which the main topic under consideration will be the British consulate in Odessa, the vice-consulates, consuls and vice-consuls, but not in terms of highlighting the im-portance of the role that this consular service has played in Great Britain politics,but rather we aim to capture a classical history of British diplomacy where the main actor would be the staff of the British consular service as well as the institutions they organized and ran. The methodological approach in this text relies on classical study of diplomacy, by selecting from the primary source from The National Archives from Kew, London all the data which concern the organization and function of the British consulate from Odessa.

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