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Sir Stephen Wall, GCMG LVO
Stephen Wall was born in January 1947 and educated at Douai School and Selwyn College, Cambridge. He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1968, working first in the UK Mission to the UN in New York, before returning to the United Nations Department in London. In 1969, he was posted to Addis Ababa and then on to Paris, in 1972, as Private Secretary to the Ambassador. He returned to London in 1974. He worked successively in the Foreign Office News Department, on loan to the Prime Minister James Callaghan's Press Office and as Assistant Private Secretary to David Owen, the then Foreign Secretary.
From 1979 to 1983, Stephen Wall served in the British Embassy Washington. On return to the FCO he was Assistant Head and then Head of European Community Department (Internal). From 1988 to 1991, he was Private Secretary to three successive Foreign Secretaries (Geoffrey Howe, John Major and Douglas Hurd). From 1991 to 1993, he returned to No. 10 as Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr John Major, responsible for Foreign Policy and Defence.
Stephen Wall served as British Ambassador to Portugal from 1993 to 1995. He was the Permanent Representative to the European Union from 1995-2000. From 2000-2004 he was the Head of the European Secretariat in the Cabinet Office in London and EU adviser to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
From June 2004 – June 2005 he was Principal Adviser to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.
In 2007, he was appointed by the Prime Minister to write Volume II of the British government's official history of Britain's relations with her EU partners: The United Kingdom and the European Community Volume II, 1963-1985.
