to be awarded the prize for publishing a book. Chatham House held the first Commonwealth Relations Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1933. Held roughly every five years, the conference provided a forum for leading politicians, lawyers, academics and others to discuss the implications of recent Imperial Conferences. With various dominion nations seeking to follow individual foreign policy aims, Major-General Sir Neill Malcolm, the chairman of the Council of the institute, emphasised the need for "essential agreement in matters of foreign policy between the various Governments," with the Commonwealth Relations Conference being the vehicle upon which this cooperation would be achieved and maintained. War years, 1939–1945 At the outbreak of the Second World War the institute, under the Chairmanship of Waldorf Astor, was decentralised for security reasons, with many of the staff moving to Balliol College, Oxford. There, the Foreign Press and Research Service of the Institute worked closely with the Foreign Office who requested various reports on foreign press, historical and political background of the enemy and various other topics supervised by Arnold Toynbee, dedicating their research to the war effort. The institute also provided many additional services to scholars and the armed forces at its St. James's Square home. Research facilities were opened to refugee and allied academics, whilst arrangements were made for both the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and the Polish Research Centre to relocate to the Institute following the bombing of their premises. In addition, allied officers undertook courses in international affairs at the Institute in an attempt to develop their international and political awareness as well as post war reconstruction planning. The post-war years Chatham House had been researching potential post-war issues as early as 1939 through the Committee on Reconstruction. Whilst a number of staff returned to the Institute at the end of the war, a proportion of members found themselves joining a range of international organisations, including the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. Combining this with the institute's early support of the League of Nations and impact of the gold study on the Bretton Woods system, Chatham House found itself to be a leading actor in international political and economic redevelopment. In reaction to the changing post-war world, Chatham House embarked on a number of studies relating to Britain and the Commonwealth's new political stature, in light of growing calls for decolonisation and the development of the Cold