Growing up in Edinburgh, I was always fascinated by the colourful national flags and coats of arms of the many consulates in the city. I was also struck by the unusual, at the time, sight of the left-hand drive chauffeur-driven car conveying the American consul around town. Years later, when working as a civil servant, a colleague and I took the American Consul General Norman Singer for an official lunch at one of Edinburgh's top hotels. This was my first encounter with a consul.

I maintained my interest in the consular world over the years and on leaving the civil service decided to examine the topic in more depth. I undertook graduate research at Durham University into a history of every country that has ever had a consulate in the United Kingdom, from earliest times until the year 2000. This was a unique project and included a major survey of all existing consulates, conducted by means of an extensive questionnaire. Cathy Hurst, the American consul in Edinburgh at the time, was kind enough to do a ‘test drive’ of the draft questionnaire to check for possible flaws in its design. More than two hundred career and honorary consuls representing almost seventy countries participated in the survey. This was about 60 per cent of the total number of consulates, and the data produced results that gave for the first time a detailed picture of the activities and duties of consuls working in the UK.

Having successfully put my PhD behind me, I wanted to continue with my interest in consular relations. At first I thought about researching the French Consular Service and, equipped with my undergraduate degree in French, felt confident enough to read official archives. But after some preliminary research I found that the topic did not hold enough appeal. My thoughts turned again to that lunch with the American consul in Edinburgh and led to an extended visit to Washington, DC, and to College Park, Maryland, where the State Department archives are stored, and to visits to the Department and the embassy in London. I also combed numerous other archives throughout the United States and Britain and corresponded with many officials and private individuals, some of whom were retired diplomats. This book is the result.