History

The office of Admiral of England, or Lord Admiral and later Lord High Admiral was created in around 1400. In 1546 King Henry VIII established the Council of the Marine, later to became the Navy Board, to oversee administrative affairs of the naval service. Operational control of the Navy remained the responsibility of the Lord High Admiral, who was one of the nine Great Officers of State.

In 1628, Charles I put the office of Lord High Admiral into commission and control of the Royal Navy passed to a committee in the form of the Board of the Admiralty. The office of Lord High Admiral passed a number of times in and out of commission until 1709, after which the office was permanently in commission.

The members of the Board of Admiralty were known as the Lords Commissioners of Admiralty. The Lords Commissioners were always a mixture of admirals, known as Naval Lords or Sea Lords, and civilian lords, normally politicians. The president of the Board was known as the First Lord of the Admiralty, who was a member of the Prime Minister's Cabinet.

In Scotland, the office of Admiral, which seems to have originated in the early 15th century, was held by the Earls of Bothwell, and the Dukes of Lennox. It was one of the heritable offices that Charles II gave to his illegitimate son Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond and Lennox. The Admiral had both a civil and a criminal jurisdiction, exercised through Vice-Admirals and Admirals-depute, later called Judge Admirals. By the Act of Union 1707 all admiralty jurisdictions were placed under the Lord High Admiral or Commissioners. Nevertheless the Vice-Admiral of Scotlad who received his commission from the Crown continued to appoint the Judge Admiral (until 1782) and Admirals-depute and to rank as an Officer of the Crown. The Admiralty Court in Edinburgh was abolished in 1830.

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.

In 1831 the Navy Board was abolished as a separate entity and its duties and responsibilities were given over to the Board of Admiralty.

In 1964 the Admiralty was subsumed into the Ministry of Defence along with the War Office and the Air Ministry. Within the expanded Ministry of Defence are the new Admiralty Board, Army Board and Air Force Board, each headed by the Secretary of State for Defence. As mentioned above, there is also a Navy Board in charge of the day-to-day running of the Royal Navy.