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For your consideration is an exceptionally rare and historically significant 13 July 1962 Royal Commission personally signed by Queen Elizabeth II (19262022), formally appointing Ian Thomas Steven, Esquire, as an Officer of Branch A of Her Majestys Foreign Service, with effect from 15 April 1959. Executed on a substantial single sheet of official watermarked paper measuring approximately 20.25 by 16.25 inches, the commission is headed in elaborate engrossed script Elizabeth the Second and bears the Queens full manuscript sign-manual Elizabeth R at the upper right. At lower right it is countersigned Home by Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, 14th Earl of Home, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and later Prime Minister, beneath the formula By Her Majestys Command.
The operative text appoints Ian Thomas Steven to serve at any of Her Majestys Diplomatic or Consular Establishments abroad, within the department of the Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, or elsewhere as required. It grants him authority to execute official writings, memorials, and instruments, to assist British ambassadors and ministers, to receive and communicate official business, and to perform the duties of a senior professional Foreign Service officer. The commission is dated at the Court of St Jamess, 13 July 1962, in the Eleventh Year of Queen Elizabeth IIs reign, while specifically recording that Stevens appointment took effect from 15 April 1959.
The named appointee can be traced independently through official British records. Ian Thomas Steven was appointed Her Majestys Consul at New York on 11 October 1960, confirming that he was already serving in a substantive overseas diplomatic post before the formal issue of this commission. He later rose further within the consular service and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1972 New Year Honours, at which time he was described as H.M. Consul-designate, Palermo. In March 1972 he was formally appointed Her Majestys Consul for the Island of Sicily and the Sicilian Islands, resident at Palermo. There is also strong evidence that he was the same Ian Thomas Steven who had earlier served during the Second World War period in the Intelligence Corps and subsequently as a Captain in the Royal Fusiliers, giving the commission an additional connection to wartime military service and post-war British diplomacy.
The documents official character is reinforced by the large blind-embossed departmental seal at the upper left, incorporating the crowned Royal Arms within the circular legend of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office / Foreign Office, impressed directly into the paper. The verso is entirely blank and unaltered, retaining only the original horizontal and vertical storage folds, minor handling creases, and a few small age-related spots. The Queens sign-manual, Lord Homes ministerial countersignature, the named career diplomat, the embossed official seal, and the complete Foreign Service appointment language combine to make this substantially more important than an ordinary royal autograph. It is a complete sovereign diplomatic commission, documenting the formal constitutional act by which a career British diplomat entered and served in Her Majestys Foreign Service during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
