Royal Naval College Greenwich Centenary 1873 - 1973
The Early Years
The Royal Navy had made no important
contributions to naval literature. The standard work on Sea Power was written
by an American Admiral. The best accounts of British sea fighting and naval
strategy were compiled by an English civilian. The Silent Service was not mute
because it was absorbed in thought or study, but because it was weighted down
by daily routine and by its ever diversifying technique. We had competent
administrators, brilliant experts of every description, unequalled navigators,
good disciplinarians, fine sea officers, brave and devoted hearts but at the
outset of the conflict, we had more Captains of ships than Captains of war. In
this will be found the explanation of. many untoward events. The odd alliance
of new scientific specialisation and old naval tradition left a deep gulf
which, later, Greenwich was to play a large part in filling.
Meanwhile
at Greenwich more and varied courses were added - the Royal Naval Medical
School (1912) and, largest of all, a Sub-Lieutenants' Pilotage Course. The
First World War naturally brought development to a halt and the College was
used partly as a barracks and partly for scientific experimental work
(including the production of vaccines). In time some courses returned - to find
incidentally that WRNS ratings had taken the place of naval pensioners as
College servants. But the return of peace brought significant expansion.
Expansion between the Wars
Scientific and specialist courses
resumed in 1919. They had formed the bulk of Greenwich's work, keeping Naval
education abreast of all modern developments to meet the ever-changing
requirements of the Fleet. The Chair in Fortification lapsed but the heads of
the Marine Engineering Department (a naval officer) and the Naval Architecture
Department (a member of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors) were designated
Professor in 1922 and 1924 respectively.
Sub-Lieutenants returned in
1921 - to a 6-months General Education Course which, though still largely
mathematical and scientific, did include some study of other subjects. A Chair
and Department in History and English was added to the existing scientific ones
in 1922, the first Professor being Sir Geoffrey Callender. 'The written word'
he claimed 'was a driving force as mighty as that of a steam turbine, and in
the stored up volumes of recorded history are to be found unchanging principles
which will decide the wars of the future as they have decided the wars of the
past.' This conviction later led to his becoming the founder/Director of the
National Maritime Museum in 1934. He was succeeded by the Navy's foremost
historian, M A Lewis, though the Sub-Lieutenants Course itself closed in 1937.
Another new creation was that of the RN Staff College in 1919. .War had
at last exposed the Navy's lack of staff training and now 20-30 middle rank
officers were to be offered one-year courses - a reform acclaimed by Haldane as
'far more value than a battle cruiser.' The Staff College chose as its motto
Respice, Aspice, Prospecte (Reflect the past, be not blind to the present,
search well into•the future) but die-hard opinion still shunned staff
training and, at best, wanted attendance to be voluntary. As late as 1935, the
Director of the Staff College, objecting to this opposition, was to complain
that the Navy offered only 'spasmodic and ill defined professional training.'
Tactical studies were largely removed from the syllabus in 1925 when a Naval
Tactical School was opened at Portsmouth.
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