Buckingham Palace ‘banned’ ethnic minorities from office jobs

UK royal officials banned ethnic minorities from clerical roles until at least the 1960s, report by The Guardian reveals.

Buckingham Palace banned “coloured immigrants or foreigners” from undertaking office roles for the United Kingdom’s royal family until at least the late 1960s, according to documents obtained by The Guardian newspaper. Citing the documents, which were discovered at the UK’s National Archives, The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Queen Elizabeth II’s chief financial manager informed civil servants in 1968 it was “not … the practice to appoint coloured immigrants or foreigners” to clerical roles in the royal household. Such individuals were, however, permitted to work as domestic servants, the newspaper reported.