A Brief History of Wilton Park

Part 2: Wilton Park 1951 - to the present day

In the mid 1950s after another public debate in both Britain and Germany about its continuing future, the Government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan decided that the new Wilton Park, as it was then called, should continue to be largely Government funded but with a much wider remit. From 1957 its participation was broadened to all the countries who are members of what is now the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

In a more leisurely age conferences lasted two weeks, with a week devoted to study-trips to London and other parts of Britain. In Sussex, proceedings were conducted in French and German as well as English. Participants, gathered together in armchairs, were encouraged by Sir Heinz Koeppler to "concentrate on the awkward and vital issues", and to be "brief, trenchant, and if possible, witty."

From 1957 Wilton Park's agenda covered not just Europe, but also Asia and Africa. The scope widened still further in 1961, thanks to a major grant from the Ford Foundation, when North American participants began coming in increasing and enthusiastic numbers, and the transatlantic link became a core part of the agenda, as it is today.

While the geographic scope has been widened, the focus on Europe has remained undiminished. Following Britain's entry into what is now the European Union in 1973, Prime Minister Edward Heath, a strong supporter of Wilton Park, and the French President, Georges Pompidou, agreed that issues concerning the enlargement of the community should be addressed at a European Discussion Centre (EDC) based at Wilton Park. The spirit of the EDC continues as part of Wilton Park's European agenda.

Sir Heinz Koeppler continued to run Wilton Park until his retirement in 1977, to be succeeded as Director by Timothy Slack (1977-1983), and then by Geoffrey Denton (1983-1993), Richard Langhorne (1993-1996), Colin Jennings (1996-2006), Adam Noble (2006), and the current Chief Executive, Donald Lamont, from January 2007.

In the early 1980s there were major changes to make events shorter, to modernise facilities, to conduct the conferences in English only and to ensure that Wilton Park remained relevant in an ever-changing world. Recurring financial pressures and doubts on its very existence raised by some sceptics in Ministries in London were overcome with support from participants from Britain and around the world. Wilton Park has survived and also thrived.

In 1991 Wilton Park became an Executive Agency to give it more operational autonomy and a more secure financial footing through the opportunity to raise more of its funding. It now raises all its running costs. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) provides capital funding, and financial and other support for individual conferences and for meeting public diplomacy objectives. The rest is met by participants' contributions, sponsorship and the hire of the House for other events. Wilton Park's financial performance as an Executive Agency is overseen by a Departmental Board chaired by the FCO.

The academic independence of Wilton Park is still supervised by a well-established Advisory Council of leading British figures from many walks of life, who also advise on conference themes and monitor their quality. An International Council of London-based Ambassadors from OECD states also advises on the annual calendar of events from a global perspective.

There have been more than 1,000 events since Wilton Park's foundation, some of considerable international significance. Democracy building remains a core theme. In the 1980s, during the transition to black majority-rule in South Africa, Wilton Park became a venue for representatives of the black community and the ruling National Party to meet behind closed doors. In the same vein, Wilton Park has been hosting events since the late 1990's on the Western Balkans. Our conference in September 1999 on the Western Balkans after Milosevic, held less than three months after the end of NATO's air campaign, was attended by many of those then in opposition, now elected to power in Belgrade, and elsewhere in South East Europe.

Central and Eastern Europe has long been a major priority. The ice was first broken in the 1980s when the first Soviet participants arrived. At the first conference, an interpreter from the Soviet Embassy in London burst out of the interpreting booth to join in the debate. At another Soviet-related conference, legend has it that a leading Russian economist challenged all the other participants to chess and beat all-comers. By now participants were coming from many countries of what was still the Soviet bloc. In one conference in October 1988, as former Director Geoffrey Denton recalls, a distinguished Romanian speaker dramatically announced the forthcoming collapse of the Communist system. To the question, "do you mean in Romania?" he replied: "No, everywhere." His prediction was fulfilled one year later.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Central and South East Europeans have been playing a growing role in the conferences held at Wilton Park and now held increasingly in many of the countries of Central and South East Europe, as well as in Western Europe. Developments in Russia are still covered on a regular basis; many of the country's leading political figures and intellectuals have spoken at Wilton Park.

In parallel with the deepening of the European programme there has been a widening of the global contacts. Conferences on Japan, China, North-East Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, Latin America and Transatlantic issues have become integral parts of the annual programme of conferences.

Conferences on global policies such as sustainable development, world trade and environmental protection, disaster response and pandemics have also become increasingly prominent.

60 years after its founding, Wilton Park is one of the world's leading centres for discussion of key international policy challenges, now organising about 60 conferences a year. It is still very much holding to the values of its founders by promoting honest and open debate on the most vital issues.

Its role has been summed up by Richard Mayne in his history of Wilton Park:
"Wilton Park was a house and is an institution; but its essence was always more. Its aim was and is to unite people: to bring together those who disagree, often violently, and by patient, outspoken discussion of their conflicting views and assumptions, to reconcile rivals and enemies in recognition of their common humanity, their shared problems and their joint hopes of peace. In today's strife-torn world, no task could be more urgent. For more than fifty years, Wilton Park has shown what can be done with care, tact, frankness and delicate hard work."

This short web-history is partly based on Richard Mayne's research.