The Admiralty was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of its history, from the early 18th century until its abolition, the role of the Lord High Admiral was almost invariably put "in commission" and exercised by the Lords Commissioner of the Admiralty, who sat on the governing Board of Admiralty, rather than by a single person. The Admiralty was replaced by the Admiralty Board in 1964, as part of the reforms that created the Ministry of Defence and its Navy Department.
The Navy Board was the commission responsible for the day-to-day civil administration of the Royal Navy between 1546 and 1832. The board was headquartered within the Navy Office.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Rooke was an English naval officer. As a junior officer he saw action at the Battle of Solebay and again at the Battle of Schooneveld during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. As a captain, he conveyed Prince William of Orange to England and took part in the Battle of Bantry Bay during the Williamite War in Ireland.
Admiral of the Fleet Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford, PC was a Royal Navy officer and politician. After serving as a junior officer at the Battle of Solebay during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, he served as a captain in the Mediterranean Sea in operations against the Barbary pirates.
Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom is an honorary office generally held by a senior Royal Navy admiral. The title holder is the official deputy to the Lord High Admiral, an honorary office which was vested in the Sovereign from 1964 to 2011 and which was subsequently held by the Duke of Edinburgh. Vice-Admirals are appointed by the Sovereign on the nomination of the First Sea Lord.
Admiral Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington was a Royal Navy officer, peer and politician. Dismissed by King James II of England in 1688 for refusing to vote to repeal the Test Act, which prevented Roman Catholics from holding public office, he brought the Invitation to William to William of Orange at The Hague, disguised as a simple sailor. As a reward he was made commander of William's invasion fleet which landed at Torbay in Devon on 5 November 1688, which initiated the Glorious Revolution.
Admiral is a senior rank of the Royal Navy, which equates to the NATO rank code OF-9, outranked only by the rank of admiral of the fleet. Royal Navy officers holding the ranks of rear admiral, vice admiral and admiral of the fleet are sometimes considered generically to be admirals. The rank of admiral is currently the highest rank to which a serving officer in the Royal Navy can be promoted, admiral of the fleet being in abeyance except for honorary promotions of retired officers and members of the Royal Family.
The Tudor navy was the navy of the Kingdom of England under the ruling Tudor dynasty (1485–1603). The period involved important and critical changes that led to the establishment of a permanent navy and laid the foundations for the future Royal Navy.
The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty also known as the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Board of Admiralty was a position on the Board of Admiralty and a civil officer of the British Royal Navy. It was usually filled by a Member of Parliament. Although he attended Board of Admiralty meetings informally he was not made a full member of that Board until 1929. He served as the deputy to the First Lord of the Admiralty in Parliament and was mainly responsible for all naval finance and spending proposals from 1625 until 1959.
Rear-Admiral John Leveson-Gower was a Royal Navy officer and politician from the Leveson-Gower family. As a junior officer he saw action at the Battle of Lagos in August 1759 during the Seven Years' War. As captain of HMS Valiant he was present at the Battle of Ushant on 17 July 1778 during the American War of Independence. He went on to be a junior Lord of the Admiralty and then First Naval Lord. He also sat as Member of Parliament for several constituencies.
Lieutenant Admiral Sir William Woodhouse was an English naval commander and administrator who rose to the rank of Lieutenant of the Admiralty and was head of the Council of the Marine later called the Navy Board. He also served as a Member of Parliament of the Parliament of England from 1545 to 1564. He was prominent during an important time of the Navy Royal's development in the later half of the Tudor period.
Rear Admiral Sir John Chicheley was a Royal Navy officer. He commanded a squadron at the Battle of Schooneveld in June 1673 and the Battle of Texel in August 1673 during the Franco-Dutch War. He went on to be Commissioner of the Ordnance and then Senior Naval Lord. He was also a Member of Parliament.
The Admiralty and Marine Affairs Office (1546–1707), previously known as the Admiralty Office (1414–1546), was a government department of the Kingdom of England, responsible for the Royal Navy. First established in 1414 when the offices of the separate Admiral of the North and West were abolished and their functions unified under a single centralised command, it was headed by the Lord High Admiral of England. The department existed until 1707 when England and Scotland united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, after which it was known as the British Admiralty.
During the early 17th century, England's relative naval power deteriorated; in the course of the rest of the 17th century, the office of the Admiralty and Marine Affairs steered the Navy's transition from a semi-amateur Navy Royal fighting in conjunction with private vessels into a fully professional institution, a Royal Navy. Its financial provisions were gradually regularised, it came to rely on dedicated warships only, and it developed a professional officer corps with a defined career structure, superseding an earlier mix of sailors and socially prominent former soldiers.
The Lord High Admirals Council was a series of councils appointed to advise and assist the Lord High Admiral of England and then later of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the direction of Naval Affairs also known as Council of the Lord High Admiral when the Board of Admiralty was not in commission the first series took place between 1702-1708 and second and final series of councils took place from 1827-1828.
The Admiral of the North also known as Admiral of the Northern Seas and Admiral of the Northern Fleet was a senior English Navy appointment. The Admiral was chiefly responsible for the command of the navy's fleet that operated in the North Sea and off the English coast out of Yarmouth from 1294 to 1412.
The Admiral of the North and West or Admiral of the North and Western Fleets was a former senior appointment of the English Navy. The post holder was Commander-in-Chief of the English navy's North and Western Fleets operating in the North Sea, the English Channel, the Southern Irish Sea and Atlantic from 1364 to 1414.
The Admiral of the Narrow Seas also known as the Admiral for the guard of the Narrow Seas was a senior Royal Navy appointment. The post holder was chiefly responsible for the command of the English navy's Narrow Seas Squadron also known as the Eastern Squadron that operated in the two seas which lay between England and Kingdom of France and England and the Spanish Netherlands later the Dutch Republic from 1412 to 1688. His subordinate units, establishments, and staff were sometimes informally known as the Command of the Narrow Seas.
The Master of Naval Ordnance was an English Navy appointment created in 1546 the office holder was one of the Chief Officers of the Admiralty and a member of the Council of the Marine and a member of the Office of Ordnance until the post was abolished in 1589. He was responsible for the supply of naval ordnance for the navy.
The Channel Squadron also referred to as the Western Squadron (1512-1649) was a series of temporary naval formations first formed in under the English Tudor Navy Royal during the sixteenth century. Later during the Interregnum a channel squadron was formed as part of the Commonwealth Navy. During the 18th century as part of the Royal Navy.
