From the Archive: Commonwealth Secretariat proposed

Exactly 45 years ago this month, heads of Government from across the Commonwealth approved a surprise call for the establishment of a Commonwealth Secretariat.

The Secretariat, to be based in London at Marlborough House, was proposed at the 1964 London summit by African and Caribbean countries keen to create an independent executive able to assist them on issues of trade, aid and economic development.

Canadian diplomat Arnold Smith, later to become the first ever Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, writing in his memoirs years afterward recalled how a more modest agenda for the summit in London prepared by British Prime Minister Alec Home - comprising some limited bilateral technical assistance projects - was soon supplanted by the more radical proposal.

“The decision that made the 1964 meeting an historic one – and, in personal terms, ended by taking over my life for ten years – did not come out of any planned debate,” Mr Smith wrote. “Before [Home’s proposals] were discussed, a quite different and more far-reaching idea... had been endorsed by most of the leaders.”

“This idea for a Commonwealth Secretariat, in fact, caught several countries - my own included - by surprise,” Mr Smith said. “It was [Ghanaian leader] Kwame Nkrumah, rather than Home, who first raised the idea.”

“[Nkrumah’s] main thrust was for a unit that would help economic development. He proposed that the Commonwealth should set up in London what he called a ‘central clearing house’, with a primary function of preparing plans for trade, aid and development.”

The final communiqué of the London summit stated that the newly approved Secretariat would “disseminate factual information to all member countries on matters of common concern” and “help to co-ordinate, in co-operation with the host country, the preparations for future meetings of Commonwealth Heads of Government”.

Head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth, donated stately home Marlborough House, in London, the following year for the nascent Secretariat’s new headquarters.

Mr Smith was nominated by Canada’s Prime Minister Lester Pearson for the post of Commonwealth Secretary-General, serving two five-year terms until 1975.