History of English and British government departments with responsibility for foreign affairs and those with responsibility for the colonies, dominions and the Commonwealth
^"Ministerial responsibility". GCHQ. 23 March 2016. Archived from the original on 7 July 2018. Retrieved 25 May 2017. Day-to-day ministerial responsibility for GCHQ lies with the Foreign Secretary.
^Sainty, J. C. (1973). "Introduction". Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 2 – Officials of the Secretaries of State 1660–1782. University of London. pp. 1–21 – via British History Online. At the Restoration [in 1660] the practice of appointing two Secretaries of State, which was well established before the Civil War, was resumed. Apart from the modifications which were made necessary by the occasional existence of a third secretaryship, the organisation of the secretariat underwent no fundamental change from that time until the reforms of 1782 which resulted in the emergence of the Home and Foreign departments. ... English domestic affairs remained the responsibility of both Secretaries throughout the period. In the field of foreign affairs there was a division into a Northern and a Southern Department, each of which was the responsibility of one Secretary. The distinction between the two departments emerged only gradually. It was not until after 1689 that their names passed into general currency. Nevertheless the division of foreign business itself can, in its broad outlines, be detected in the early years of the reign of Charles II.
Cecil, Algernon. British foreign secretaries, 1807–1916: studies in personality and policy (1927). pp. 89–130. online
Goodman, Sam. The Imperial Premiership: The Role of the Modern Prime Minister in Foreign Policy Making, 1964–2015 (Oxford UP, 2016).
Hughes, Michael. British Foreign Secretaries in an Uncertain World, 1919–1939. (Routledge, 2004).
Johnson, Gaynor. "Introduction: The Foreign Office and British Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century", Contemporary British History, (2004) 18:3, 1–12, doi:10.1080/1361946042000259279
Neilson, Keith, and Thomas G. Otte. The permanent under-secretary for foreign affairs, 1854–1946 (Routledge, 2008).
Otte, Thomas G. The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865–1914 (Cambridge UP, 2011).
Seldon, Anthony. The Impossible Office? The History of the British Prime Minister (2021) excerpt major scholarly history. Covers the relations with Prime Minister in Chapter 8.
Steiner, Zara. The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (1986).
Temperley, Harold. "British Secret Diplomacy from Canning to Grey." Cambridge Historical Journal 6.1 (1938): 1–32.
Theakston, Kevin, ed. British foreign secretaries since 1974 (Routledge, 2004).
Wilson, Keith M., ed. British foreign secretaries and foreign policy: from Crimean War to First World War (1987).
