The New International Encyclopædia/Admiralty, The

ADMIRALTY, The. In England, the state department which exercises the administrative functions of the lord high admiral, and which, accordingly, has the management of all matters concerning the British Navy and the royal marines. These functions of the lord high admiral have been transferred to and vested in a board of commissioners. (See Admiral.) The constitution and functions of this body will now be described.

The board of admiralty, as at present constituted, comprises five lords commissioners of the admiralty, who decide collectively on all important questions. Besides this collective or corporate action, each commissioner has special duties assigned to him. There are two civil or political lords, and three naval or sea lords. The first lord, who is always a cabinet minister, besides a general control, has the management of naval estimates, finance, political affairs, slave-trade prevention, appointments, and promotions. The first naval lord manages the composition and distribution of the fleet, naval discipline, appointment of inferior officers, commissioning ships, general instructions, sailing orders, and the naval reserve. The second naval lord attends to armaments, manning the navy, the coast-guard, the marines, marine artillery, and naval apprentices. The third naval lord has control over the purchase and disposal of stores, victualing ships, navy medical affairs, transports, convicts, and pensioners. The junior civil lord attends to accounts, mail-packets, Greenwich hospital, naval chaplains, and schools. Naval architecture, the building and repairing of ships, steam machinery, and new inventions are superintended by the Comptroller of the Navy, who is not a member of the board, but is directly responsible to the first lord. Under the lords are the first secretary (parliamentary), the second secretary (permanent), and the naval secretary (professional), who manage the daily office work. The lords all resign when the prime minister resigns, and those who have seats in Parliament are replaced by others.