The Making of the Modern Admiralty
British Naval Policy-Making, 1805–1927

An important new history of decision-making and policy-making in the British Admiralty from Trafalgar to the aftermath of Jutland.

C. I. Hamilton (Author)

9780521765183, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 February 2011

356 pages, 4 tables
23.4 x 15.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.71 kg

'… a contribution to the wider field of institutional history … both succinct and absorbing.' David McLean, Victorian Studies

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.

Introduction
1. Lord Barham's Admiralty: 1805
2. Admiralty reform, 1806–1835
3. Decision-making at the Admiralty, c.1806–1830
4. Admiralty administration and decision-making, c.1830–1868. The Graham Admiralty
5. The Admiralty reformed again: context and problems, 1869–1885
6. Administrative and policy-making responses, c.1882 onwards
7. Fisher and Churchill, and their successors, 1902–1917
8. The Naval Staff, planning and policy
9. Lord Beatty's Admiralty
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]