Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building Pediment
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), commonly called the
Foreign Office, is a department of the Government of the United
Kingdom. It is responsible for protecting and promoting British
interests worldwide. It was created in 1968 by merging the Foreign
Office and the Commonwealth Office.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office occupies a building which
originally provided premises for four separate government departments:
the Foreign Office, the India Office, the Colonial Office, and the
Home Office. Construction on the building began in 1861 and finished
in 1868, and it was designed by the architect George Gilbert
Scott. Its architecture is in the Italianate style; Scott had
initially envisaged a Gothic design, but Lord Palmerston, then Prime
Minister, insisted on a classical style. English sculptors Henry
Hugh Armstead and John Birnie Philip produced a number of allegorical
figures ('Art', 'Law', 'Commerce', etc.) for the exterior.
Photo 125, May 2015