The Making of the Modern Admiralty

This is an important new history of decision-making and policy-making in the British Admiralty from Trafalgar to the aftermath of Jutland. C. I. Hamilton explores the role of technological change, the global balance of power and, in particular, of finance and the First World War in shaping decision-making and organisational development within the Admiralty. He shows that decision-making was found not so much in the hands of the Board but at first largely in the hands of individuals, then groups or committees, and finally certain permanent bureaucracies. The latter bodies, such as the Naval Staff, were crucial to the development of policy-making as was the civil service Secretariat under the Permanent Secretary. By the 1920s the Admiralty had become not just a proper policy-making organisation, but for the first time a thoroughly civil-military one.

• Focuses on decision-making within the Admiralty in a crucial peacetime period for the British Navy, covering both the people involved and organisational structures
• Highlights the struggle behind the scenes to maintain British naval mastery despite the pressures of developing technology, accumulating paperwork and rival international powers
• Demonstrates that financial pressures and ultimately the First World War brought civil servants and naval officers together to formulate naval policy