"One of the most historic, as well as one of the most beautiful, buildings in London is the Admiralty. It was designed and built by two very famous architects, Thomas Ripley and Inigo Jones. Ripley's Admiralty was built in 1722, and a new front and extra buildings were added in 1786 from the designs of Inigo Jones. Since then, of course, further buildings have been added, the famous Admiralty Arch in 1909 and the equally famous Citadel in 1939. But even before Ripley, there was an Admiralty building on the same site in Whitehall. The first was in 1695, so that for more than 250 years the affairs of the Navy have been carried on from the same place.

It is from the Admiralty that the Royal Navy is run. In the old days, the head of the Navy was called the Lord High Admiral, and he was appointed by the King. But as the Navy grew larger and beyond the capacity of one man to run, his job was taken over by a board of Commissioners, who shared the duties between them. Even to-day, their full title is "Lords Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral".

The modern Board of Admiralty consists of a mixture of naval officers and civilians. The civilians are the First Lord, who is responsible to Parliament for the administration of the Navy, the Parliamentary Secretary, who assists him, the Civil Lord, who is responsible for the money voted by Parliament for the Navy, and the Secretary, who deals with the internal administration of the Admiralty.

The Naval members are headed by the:

First Sea Lord, who is in control of the whole of the Royal Navy. He is also the Chief of Naval Staff (since 1917; separate post before then), and is assisted on the Board by the Vice Chief of Naval Staff (Deputy and Assistant CNS in 1917). There are four more Sea Lords, the Second who is responsible for the manning of the Navy, the Third, who is known as the Controller and who deals with the supply of material required by the Navy, such as ships, guns, the Fourth, who deals with supplies and stores, and the Fifth, who is in charge of Naval Aviation (in 1918 the Royal Naval Air Service was incorporated in the new Royal Air force).

These men between them ensure that the Navy is fit and ready to undertake any duty for which it may be required. They have to make sure that its ships are efficient and numerous enough, that they are properly manned, that they have all the supplies they need, and also they are in the right place at the right time. It is they who decide on where the various fleets are to be stationed and the size of those fleets, and if anything goes wrong, they are the men who will have to take the blame.

Below the Board of Admiralty come the various departments into which the Admiralty is divided. The civil departments, composed of Civil Servants, deal with such things as accounts, secretarial duties, scientific research, and so on. The naval departments deal with Operations, Intelligence, Planning, Gunnery, Torpedo and Mining, Signals (all extant by 1918 except a separate Mining division), and generally those things which affect the actual ships of the Navy.

It is not possible in a book of this kind to describe every naval department in the Admiralty, and some of them, such as Gunnery, Torpedo and Mining, and Planning, are fairly obvious. But there is space for a word or two on the more interesting, those of Operations, Intelligence, and Signals.

The Operations Division is responsible for the movements of ships and, in wartime, the strategic side of naval warfare. When we were looking at the way we ordered convoys to avoid submarines in a previous chapter, we saw how signals were sent for them to make a detour. The Operations Division does the same in regard to warships.

When an enemy raider is discovered at sea, it is the Operations Division which orders ships to concentrate in the area to hunt her down. When a battle is being fought, they will send the signal which instructs other squadrons to support the Admiral fighting the battle. But they do not try to fight the battle themselves.  That is always left to the admiral on the spot. All they can do is to try and see that he has the maximum of support by ordering other warships to the vicinity.

Intelligence is the gathering of information about the enemy and sending it out to those who require it. When I was describing the battle against the Bismarck in an earlier chapter, I told how she betrayed her position by making a wireless signal. The plotting of the wireless bearings and the finding of her position was the work of the Intelligence Division, who signalled it to the Commander-in-Chief. It was then for him to make his own decisions as to how to catch her in the light of that information.

Intelligence is gathered from many sources. Secret agents in enemy countries send information through on all sorts of subjects, such as movements of ships, the rate of building, the type of ships being built, when they were completed, and so on.

All that information comes in to the Intelligence Division. From it, and from any other sources they may have, they try and build up a complete picture of what is happening on the enemy's side. They sort the information out, grade it for reliability, and then send it out to the ships at sea when it concerns them. Suppose, for instance, a secret agent in Holland sees a cruiser going to sea from Hamburg. He signals the news to the Admiralty. If the Intelligence Division thinks the news is accurate, they will then send it out to those people who ought to know it. In such a case, for example, they would send it to the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, for he is responsible for the North Sea area. It would be sent, too, to the Flag Officers at Dover, Chatham, and Harwich, as they might have forces available to intercept. It would also go to all submarines on patrol in the North Sea, as they might be able to get into position to deliver an attack. .....
 
Now the enemy makes a wireless signal. Once again the Intelligence Division goes into action. The wireless bearings are plotted and a position obtained. That information goes out to the ships at sea and gives them an idea of the general direction in which the enemy is moving. We may have forces near enough to engage, on the other hand, she may be steering up inside one of her own protective minefields. The Intelligence Division, knowing of that minefield, would warn ships of the danger.
 
And so it goes on, until the enemy either reaches her destination in safety or is brought to action. All through, the two Divisions of the Admiralty will be on the alert, Intelligence sending out all the news of the enemy they can get, Operations bringing up reinforcements and supporting the admiral at sea by offering him additional ships and by trying to block possible escape routes by ordering vessels to concentrate there.
 
One other naval division of the Admiralty is, perhaps, worth looking at. This is the Signals Division, which has responsibility not only for receiving and sending signals to ships at sea and stations ashore, but also for the coding or cyphering of the signals.
 
When a message has to be sent out from the Admiralty, it is passed to the Signals Division. Before it can be sent, it has either to be coded or cyphered, so that only those who are to receive it can read it. This, of course, is to preserve its secrecy. The receiving ships all have the requisite code books with which they can decode the signal and put it back into plain language.
 
When the signal is coded, it usually appears in the form of groups of letters or numbers. A wireless operator in the Admiralty taps them out with his morse key, which is connected to one of the main naval wireless stations in the country. The signal is usually prefixed by a "call-sign", which indicates the ship to which it is being sent. And when a ship hears her call-sign on the air, she reads the signal, knowing it is for her. .....
 
Much of the Navy's work is carried on outside the Admiralty. As it has grown in size, so it has called for a larger administrative staff to run it. Now the Admiralty is no longer big enough to take all the people who are responsible for its smooth working. So some have to work outside, and the Admiralty has many other establishments in the country besides its big building in Whitehall.
 
And now a word about the naval dockyards. Every so often ships have to go into dock for repairs or improvements. There are three main dockyards in this country, at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Devonport, and others overseas, such as those at Gibraltar, Malta, Singapore, and Hong Kong. They undertake the periodic refit of warships, repairs after battle, major alterations and improvements, and so on. They are manned by skilled ship-workers and no job is too big or too difficult for them to tackle. In the home dockyards, a certain amount of naval building is carried out. (Click for note on Royal and Naval Dockyards in 1914 - Home and Abroad. Includes charts of bases)
 
Finally, before we bring this chapter and this book to an end, it is necessary to try to take a look at the Navy of the future. This is done by means of the various research and experimental stations which the Navy maintains. (Click for note on World War 1-era Admiralty Research Establishments). .....

(my thanks to the late  Lieut.-Commander P K Kemp R.N.)