The Private Secretary to the Sovereign is the senior operational member of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom (as distinct from the Great Officers of the Household). The Private Secretary is the principal channel of communication with Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and with the governments of the other fifteen Commonwealth realms. He or she also has responsibility for the official programme and correspondence of the Sovereign. Through these roles the position wields considerable influence.
The office of Private Secretary was first established in 1805. The current Private Secretary is the Rt Hon. Sir Christopher Geidt, KCVO OBE, who succeeded Sir Robin Janvrin (now Lord Janvrin) in September 2007.
Read more about Private Secretary To The Sovereign: History, Functions, List of Private Secretaries To The Sovereign Since 1805
Famous quotes containing the words private, secretary and/or sovereign:
“For such will be our ruin if you, in the immensity of your public abstractions, forget the private figure, or if we in the intensity of our private emotions forget the public world. Both houses will be ruined, the public and the private, the material and the spiritual, for they are inseparably connected.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“... the wife of an executive would be a better wife had she been a secretary first. As a secretary, you learn to adjust to the boss’s moods. Many marriages would be happier if the wife would do that.”
—Anne Bogan, U.S. executive secretary. As quoted in Working, book 1, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“Chance, my dear, is the sovereign deity in child-bearing.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)