The Making of the Modern Admiralty: British Naval Policy-Making, 1805–1927 by C. I. Hamilton (review)

Some may find The Making of the Modern Admiralty a little ponderous. The writing can be dry and in places lacking inspiration, and the amount of detail makes it hard at times to keep the author’s wider canvas in view. Yet these are problems which often arise in studies based on meticulous documentary research and, in this case, they do not detract from the work’s originality. The author, of course, requires no introduction: C. I. Hamilton has published extensively on the Royal Navy in the nineteenth century and is among a generation of academics who have brought that monumental institution into the light of mainstream history. His focus is on policy-making—a term used widely in historical and political writing, albeit too often without any clear explanation of what it might mean.

Hamilton tackles this last point in his opening section. People have always made decisions; so when does a decision, or even a cluster of decisions, merit promotion to the more impressive status of policy? What processes or bodies do decisions have to pass through in order to qualify as policy? And where, in any administrative system, are decisions really made? Individuals may hold elevated political positions, appear publicly accountable, or perhaps possess some primeval form of job description, yet those at the top who enjoy the trappings of high office and who might bear nominal responsibility are frequently influenced by others far less powerful. In practice, clerks and underlings can exercise considerable control by being in command of routine detail, through an administrative culture which often they and their predecessors have created, or because they have permanence while those above them come and go according to the whims of patronage and political expediency. As for the Royal Navy, there was always a Board of Admiralty, but what exactly did the board do beyond authorise decisions which, in effect, had already been taken? As the navy grew in size, so the tensions inherent in planning became complicated further by the uncertain and sometimes overlapping functions of units, committees, and sections within the admiralty in matters of intelligence-gathering, procurement, and strategic thinking. Throughout the period, conflicts between civilians and senior naval officers were seldom far from view. Likewise, money was a common source of dispute; fighting over the allocation of resources might require as much time and energy as worrying about how to prepare for any future enemy on the high seas. Powerful as the admiralty was at the highest levels of government, there had always been some financial checks and controls. By the 1920s, however, Hamilton concludes, the treasury was becoming critical as never before because of the naval budget.

Notions of reform, modernisation, and efficiency adorn the rhetoric of politicians and ambitious administrators and are thus not always suitable vocabulary for serious historians. Of course the admiralty changed between 1805 and 1927, but Hamilton is rightly cautious when either awarding credit for achievements or apportioning blame for failings. He provides, for example, a realistic appraisal of John Fisher’s influence at the admiralty between 1886 and 1914—especially as First Sea Lord from 1904 until 1910. The regimes of John Jellicoe, Wester Wemyss, and David Beatty are likewise assessed: the ability to delegate, Hamilton judges, was vital—an area where Jellicoe is clearly found to be deficient. Such evaluations of individuals and their habits run throughout the book. The development of administrative practices under Charles Middleton, later Lord Barham, before 1806; the relationship between John Barrow and John Wilson Crocker extending into the 1820s; and the advent of Benthamite ideas about individual responsibility and the impact of James Graham as First Lord in the 1830s are all properly analysed. In many ways, it could be argued, Graham’s admiralty survived until the late 1860s. Only then was its structure reorganised under Hugh Culling Eardley Childers and George Goschen over...