This blog post was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

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Edward Ferguson

British Ambassador to the Republic of Serbia

Part of FCDO Human Rights UK in Bosnia and Herzegovina

29th March 2015

Celebrating three great English exports in 2015

In 2015, England marks two major anniversaries. It will be 800 years since the Magna Carta was sealed and 750 years since the formation of the first English parliament.

Anyone who is interested in seeing the document that has been described as England’s greatest export need only visit the British Library, where not one but two copies are on display in a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition.

Embodied in the Rule of Law in over 100 countries, the Magna Carta established for the first time that everyone, even the king, had to obey the law.

The document inspired early American settlers, with its principles echoed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights; it has been used to argue for freedom of the press; and for extending the vote to ordinary people and to women.

It is also the foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Written after the atrocities of World War II, this declaration states that people around the world are protected by fundamental human rights, regardless of their citizenship, race, gender or beliefs. Eleanor Roosevelt famously said that the Declaration may well become ‘the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere’.

Events are taking place around the UK to celebrate the anniversary of the Great Seal being placed on the document at Runnymede, in southern England, in June 1215.

The UK’s stable and prosperous democracy is among the legacies of the Magna Carta.

Over the centuries, England has developed rich traditions that include the pageantry of the State Opening of the Houses of Parliament, the Queen’s Speech, and the lively debate of Prime Minister’s Questions.

But democracy and human rights are not a given in many parts of the world. Bosnia and Herzegovina has strong legislation in the field of human rights, but problems remain with selective implementation. We look forward to working with the Council of Europe’s Secretary General Jagland and the chairmanship by Bosnia and Herzegovina of the Committee of Ministers this year. Strengthening the Rule of Law will be a key pillar of the EU Agenda for Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the UK will continue to provide financial and technical support to help the judiciary to meet citizens’ needs for rapid, effective and independent justice.

The second great English export has to be a sport – but which one? Sports that can trace their origins to England include cricket, rugby and football.

Take the Afghanistan national cricket team. They have just debuted in the 2015 World Cup, playing six matches and winning one against the finest players in the world, and dismissing two of their opponents’ opening batsmen for golden ducks (for non-cricketers, a golden duck means that a batsman is out at the first ball).

Rugby draws its name from Rugby in Warwickshire, where schoolboy William Webb Ellis picked up a ball and ran with it in 1823.

This year, the Rugby World Cup comes to England. Twenty teams from six continents will compete to lift the William Webb Ellis Cup on 31 October in Twickenham, the home of English rugby.

And it was at the Freemasons’ Tavern in London where the rules of association football were first standardised.

Representatives of football clubs and schools met in the Covent Garden pub, and over the course of six meetings in autumn and winter 1863 they codified a definitive set of rules.  From these humble beginnings, football spread across the globe and is now the most popular sport in the world.

England cannot claim to have invented athletics, despite the unforgettable 2012 London Olympics, but it was an Englishman, Roger Bannister, who first broke the Four Minute Mile at a running track in Oxford in 1954.

The third great English export has to be the English language, which is now spoken by many times more people than the 53 million who live in England itself.

It is the language in which Shakespeare wrote, and The Beatles sang, and the number one language on the world wide web, which was itself invented by English computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

English language and English literature are now taught to hundreds of millions of school children around the world.

St George’s Day falls on 23 April, and is the day that England celebrates its patron saint.

To mark the occasion, and for all of those who are studying or have studied English literature, we have produced a quiz about England’s poets, looking at their international links and the landscapes that inspired them.

Did you know, for instance, that three of our greatest poets all died on St George’s Day?  This is why we commemorate not only William Shakespeare but also the poets Rupert Brooke and William Wordsworth on 23 April.

Enjoy the quiz, and I hope you’ll be inspired.

About Edward Ferguson

Edward Ferguson took over as His Majesty’s Ambassador to Serbia in July 2023. Before coming to Belgrade, Edward served as the Minister Counsellor Defence at the British Embassy in Washington…

Edward Ferguson took over as His Majesty’s Ambassador to Serbia in July 2023. Before coming to Belgrade, Edward served as the Minister Counsellor Defence at the British Embassy in Washington DC in September 2018. Together with the Defence Attaché, he led the British Defence Staff (United States), a network of 1,000 people spread across 28 States. As the UK’s senior policy adviser on defence relations with the United States, he was responsible for UK-US collaboration on strategic planning, nuclear policy and programmes, trade and acquisition, and science and technology. He was the US Network’s lead on HMG’s Integrated Review and AUKUS, and the senior champion for the Race, Ethnic and Cultural Heritage Group.

Previously, he served as Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2014 to 2018, where he created and led a new international strategy, co-launched by the British and German Foreign Ministers, that re-energised Euro-Atlantic integration after years of stagnation while stimulating economic growth and reducing high levels of youth unemployment.

A former Exhibitioner and Choral Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, where he was also Treasurer of the Oxford Union, Edward graduated with First Class Honours in Classics in 2001. Joining the Graduate Fast Stream of the Ministry of Defence, he started out in the Naval Staff before joining the Iraq Secretariat during the build-up to and subsequent execution of Operation TELIC. In 2003, he was involved in financial and requirement scrutiny of the Department’s future helicopter procurement programme.

From 2004 to 2006, he managed a national award-winning £300-million programme to consolidate the MOD estate in Greater London and to redevelop RAF Northolt. In 2006, he volunteered for an operational tour, serving as Political Advisor to a British Battlegroup in Maysaan Province, Iraq (while his brother was a troop leader with the British Army in Basra). On his return, he took on responsibility for the strategic management of the UK’s bilateral defence relations with the United States, Canada and Western Europe.

From 2007 to 2009, he worked as Private Secretary to three Defence Secretaries, acting as their closest adviser on issues relating to operations in Iraq, the £6-billion defence equipment programme, science & technology, counter-terrorism and counter-piracy.

In 2009, he was appointed the Head of Afghanistan and Pakistan Policy, responsible for advice to the National Security Council on the policy, financial, legal, parliamentary and presentational aspects of the UK military contribution to operations in Afghanistan, and on the long-term defence role and interests in Pakistan.

From 2011 to 2014, he was Head of Defence Strategy and Priorities, leading two teams, one responsible for leading the MOD’s contribution to developing the 2015 National Security Strategy and the Strategic Defence and Security Review, and the other for prioritising the MOD’s international defence engagement activities. In 2013, he graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science with an MSc with Distinction in Strategy and Diplomacy. He has been a member of the RCDS Strategic Advisory Panel, a member of the US Air Force Grand Strategy Advisory Board, and is a graduate of the PINNACLE Command and Staff course.

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