In 1919 Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon invited Oliver Wardrop (1864-1948) to become the first Chief British Commissioner of Transcaucasus – a post he held just until before the Bolshevik invasion of 1921. Oliver Wardrop’s first trip to Georgia was in 1887, which resulted in his book “The Kingdom of Georgia”, published in 1888. In 1894 he made a second journey to Georgia after having learnt the Georgian language and published a series of books on Georgia (“The Book of Wisdom and Lies”).

By the end of the 19th c British and European investment in the Caucasus had grown, so had the complexity of the political atmosphere. Russian domination of the region declined immediately after the 1917 Revolution. A year after German authority drained away with its defeat in the First World War, leaving power vacuum. With large oil interests still in Baku and Batumi, the British intervened and Ajara became a British Protectorate. British troops found themselves increasingly unpopular against the background of the increased complexity of the political atmosphere in Caucasus. In London, Lord Curzon and Winston Churchill started looking for a man capable of restoring cohesion and British popularity in the region. In July 1919 they proposed Oliver Wardrop be installed in Tbilsi as British Chief Commissioner of the Transcaucasus. The new Menshevik Government of independent Georgia led by Noe Zhordania welcomed Oliver’s return to Tiflis.

In 1920 Ramsay Macdonald, later to become Britain’s first Labour Prime Minister, arrived and wrote enthusiastically about Georgia in a number of British publications including “Headway Magazine”.

According to observers, the new Menshevik government, in spite of many problems, started off well but the gathering strength of the nearby Bolshevik army soon darkened its horizon. In spite of Oliver Wardrop’s capable diplomacy, the menace spread and contradictions became more apparent, even within the British leadership. In the end, the Bolshevik invasion of Georgia in February 1921 removed all western European influence from Georgia for 70 years.

After his departure from Tbilisi, Oliver Wardrop began a string of initiatives to bring Georgia to public attention in England. He helped to set up the Georgian Society and the Georgian Committee in London. In the mid 1930s, together with W.E.D. Allen, he formed the Georgian Historic Society, which published its own journal “Georgica”. He also catalogued the Georgian manuscripts at the British Museum and continued to add to the Wardrop Collection at the Bodlean Library.

Since then the tradition of promoting Georgia in Britain has been maintained first by W.E.D. Allen, then Professor Marshal Langue of London University. Today it continues to be helped by the Marjory Wardrop Fund –which among other projects commissioned the Oxford University Press “Catalogue to the Wardrop Collection”, compiled by David Barrett. Today the legacy of the Wardrops remains a strong as ever. Marjory Wardrop’s first English translation of Shota Rustaveli's 12th c masterpiece “The Man in the Panther’s Skin” is still highly regarded among international scholars, as is the Marjory Wardrop Fund at Oxford University, created by Sir Oliver Wardrop after Marjory’s death in 1909. The Bodlean Library’s Wardrop collection of books and manuscripts remains one of the finest collections of Kartvelan material outside Georgia.
In 2000 HMA Richard Jenkins unveiled a plaque on the building in Ingorokva Street – opposite the State Chancellery - where the British Consulate was located.