Chatham House, London

Chatham House, London

Anglo-American discussions at the Paris peace conferences in May 1919 on the need for rational, scientific analysis of international affairs spawned two new institutions - the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in London. The latter, commonly known as Chatham House, became an important forum for international debate, conducted according to strict non-attribution rules, at its elegant St James’s Square address, a gift from wealthy Canadian RW Leonard. In the interwar years, Chatham House and its journal, International Affairs, were associated with many leading British internationalists, notably Lionel Curtis, Robert Cecil, Arnold Toynbee and Ivison Macadam. As these images show, Chatham House employees were largely female for much of the interwar period and included Margaret Cleeve, the RIIA’s long-serving and influential librarian and editor of International Affairs.

Chatham House archives