| Description | The Royal Society set up its International Relations Committee in 1937 to advise on cooperation with the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). Harold Warris Thompson was an ex officio member of the Committee as Chairman of The British National Committee for Chemistry from 1960. After he became Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, Thompson recommended that proposals to expand the Society's overseas activities required the replacement of the large Committee designed to deal with ICSU affairs and its component bodies with a smaller committee to discuss general policy in foreign relations. The recommendation was accepted and the new Committee met for the first time on 30 March 1966 with Thompson as its Chairman. The abolition of the Committee in 1979 was explained to Thompson in terms of the role of Council in dealing with policy problems in international relations and the concern of the Officers to save money by reducing the number of committees. |