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 Naval History and Heritage Command, formerly the Naval Historical Center, is an Echelon II command responsible for the preservation, analysis, and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage located at the historic Washington Navy Yard. The NHHC is composed of 42 facilities in 13 geographic locations including the Navy Department Library, 10 museums and 1 heritage center, USS Constitution repair facility and detachment, and historic ship ex-USS Nautilus.
John Brewster Hattendorf, FRHistS, FSNR, is an American naval historian. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of more than fifty books, mainly on British and American maritime history and naval warfare. In 2005, the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings described him as "one of the most widely known and well-respected naval historians in the world." In reference to his work on the history of naval strategy, an academic in Britain termed him the "doyen of US naval educators." A Dutch scholar went further to say that Hattendorf "may rightly be called one of the most influential maritime historians in the world." From 1984 to 2016, he was the Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He has called maritime history "a subject that touches on both the greatest moments of the human spirit as well as on the worst, including war." In 2011, the Naval War College announced the establishment of the Hattendorf Prize for Distinguished Original Research in Maritime History, named for him. The 2014 Oxford Naval Conference - "Strategy and the Sea" - celebrated his distinguished career on April 10–12, 2014. The proceedings of the conference were published as a festschrift. In March 2016, Hattendorf received the higher doctorate of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University of Oxford. Among the few Americans to have earned this academic degree at Oxford, Hattendorf remained actively engaged on the Naval War College campus after his formal retirement in 2016.
Sir Julian Stafford Corbett was a prominent British naval historian and geostrategist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works helped shape the Royal Navy's reforms of that era. One of his most famous works is Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, which remains a classic among students of naval warfare. Corbett was a good friend and ally of naval reformer Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher, the First Sea Lord. He was chosen to write the official history of British Naval operations during World War I.
Trafalgar Day is the celebration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.
The British Mediterranean Fleet, also known as the Mediterranean Station, was a formation of the Royal Navy. The Fleet was one of the most prestigious commands in the navy for the majority of its history, defending the vital sea link between the United Kingdom and the majority of the British Empire in the Eastern Hemisphere. The first Commander-in-Chief for the Mediterranean Fleet was the appointment of General at Sea Robert Blake in September 1654. The Fleet was in existence until 1967.
The Royal Naval College, Osborne, was a training college for Royal Navy officer cadets on the Osborne House estate, Isle of Wight, established in 1903 and closed in 1921.
Stephen Wentworth Roskill was a senior career officer of the Royal Navy, serving during the Second World War and, after his enforced medical retirement, served as the official historian of the Royal Navy from 1949 to 1960. He is now chiefly remembered as a prodigious author of books on British maritime history.
Admiral Sir Herbert William Richmond, was a prominent Royal Navy officer, described as "perhaps the most brilliant naval officer of his generation." He was also a top naval historian, known as the "British Mahan", the leader of the British Royal Navy's intellectual revolution that stressed continuing education especially in naval history as essential to the formation of naval strategy. After serving as a "gadfly" to the British Admiralty, his constructive criticisms causing him to be "denied the role in the formation of policy and the reformations of naval education which his talents warranted", he served as Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at Cambridge University from 1934 to 1936, and Master of Downing College, Cambridge from 1934 to 1946.
Sir John Knox Laughton was a British naval historian and arguably the first to delineate the importance of the subject of Naval history as an independent field of study. Beginning his working life as a mathematically trained civilian instructor for the Royal Navy, he later became professor of modern history at King's College London and a co-founder of the Navy Records Society. A prolific writer of lives, he penned the biographies of more than 900 naval personalities for the Dictionary of National Biography.
Rear Admiral James Vincent Purcell Goldrick, was an Australian naval historian, analyst of contemporary naval and maritime affairs, and a senior officer of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Following his retirement from the RAN, Goldrick was a fellow at the Sea Power Centre – Australia and an adjunct professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He was also a member of the Naval Studies Group at the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, an adjunct professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University and a professorial fellow of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong. He was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford in the first half of 2015, and a non-resident Fellow of the Lowy Institute from 2013 to 2018.
Rear Admiral John Richard Hill was a rear-admiral in the Royal Navy, a former chief executive of the Middle Temple, author, and editor of many books on naval affairs.
The Society for Nautical Research is a British society that conducts research and sponsors projects related to maritime history worldwide.
The East Indies Station was a formation and command of the British Royal Navy. Created in 1744 by the Admiralty, it was under the command of the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies.
Paul G. Halpern is a retired American educator, naval historian and documentary editor. His primary focus has been the history of the Royal Navy in the period surrounding the First World War and in Naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I. In describing his career of achievement in publishing six volumes of edited naval documents, "The Annual Report of the Council of the Navy Records Society" noted in 2016 that "Paul Halpern has served the Society notably". "Those who have edited a similar number are a distinguished group: Sir Julian Corbett, Michael Oppenheim, Professor David Syrett, and J. R. Tanner, while only Sir John Knox Laughton and the Admiralty Librarian David Bonner-Smith have outstripped him."
The Comptroller of the Navy originally called the Clerk Comptroller of the Navy was originally a principal member of the English Navy Royal, and later the British Royal Navy, Navy Board. From 1512 until 1832, the Comptroller was mainly responsible for all British naval spending and directing the business of the Navy Board from 1660 as its chairman. The position was abolished in 1832 when the Navy Board was merged into the Board of Admiralty. The comptroller was based at the Navy Office.
Roger Charles Anderson was an independently-wealthy English maritime historian, collector, and a leading figure in the early years of the Society for Nautical Research and of the Navy Records Society. Four times editor of the Mariner's Mirror, Anderson was also a founder trustee, and later chairman of the board of trustees, of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and held the higher Doctor of Letters degree. In 2005, the Swedish naval historian Jan Glete characterised Anderson as "one of the most important naval historians of the twentieth century. He mainly wrote about early modern warship technology and used his linguistic skills to write books and essays based on the literature from several countries."
The Western Squadron was a squadron or formation of the Royal Navy based at Plymouth Dockyard. It operated in waters of the English Channel, the Western Approaches, and the North Atlantic. It defended British trade sea lanes from 1650 to 1814 and 1831 to 1854. Following Admiralty orders to Lord Anson he was instructed to combine all existing commands in the English Channel - those at the Downs, Narrow Seas, Plymouth and the Spithead - under a centralized command under the Commander-in-Chief, Western Squadron in 1746. The squadron was commanded by the Flag Officer with the dual title of Commander-in-Chief, English Channel and Commander-in-Chief, Western Squadron
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 Commander-in-Chief, English Channel or formally Commander-in-Chief, of His Majesty's Ships in the Channel was a senior commander of the Royal Navy. The Spithead Station was a name given to the units, establishments, and staff operating under the post from 1709 to 1746. Following Admiral Lord Anson new appointment as Commander-in-Chief, English Channel this office was amalgamated with the office of Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
