Organisation
The Lords Commissioners usually comprised a mixture of serving admirals, called Naval or Sea Lords, and politicians, or Civil Lords, with the Naval Lords usually in a majority.
The president of the Board was known as the First Lord of the Admiralty, or sometimes First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, who was a member of the Cabinet. After 1806, the First Lord of the Admiralty was always a civilian, while the professional head of the navy came to be (and is still today) known as the First Sea Lord. From 1805 the various Naval Lords were assigned specific duties, e.g. (1941):
- First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff
- Vice Chief of Naval Staff (Intelligence, Operations and Navigation)
- Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel
- Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy
- Vice and Deputy Controllers (Research and development, construction and maintenance)
- Controller of merchant ship building and repairs
- Fourth Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Supplies
- Fifth Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Air Services (in the 20th century)
- Civil Lord Civil Engineer-in-Chief
- Parliamentary Secretary Contract and purchase
- Permanent Secretary All departments and Branches of Secretariat, War Registry
The quorum of the Board was two Commissioners and a Secretary.
Read more about this topic: Lords Commissioners Of The Admiralty
Famous quotes containing the word organisation:
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)