Talk:Admiralty (United Kingdom)

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British Admiralty
British Admiralty links here--but is not explained at all. Could you please add that? I'm looking for "British Admiralty" as of the early 19th century--what exactly does that refer to? Thanks, Ibn Battuta 18:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The subject of this article is the British Admiralty. That is Admiralty = British Admiralty. So, if you are looking for info on the British Admiralty, you'll find it here (although admittedly, there is not much on the 19th century). The other meanings of Admiralty (ex. Russion, Dutch, etc.) can be found on the disambiguation page.--SteveMtl 20:51, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Robert Blackborne
I'm wondering if anyone has any specifics on Robert Blackborne, a friend of Samuel Pepys who served as secretary of the Admiralty under the Protectorate in the 1650's and later as secretary of the old East India Company? Many thanks in advance!MarmadukePercy (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

D.N.1 or D.N.I
Looking through my grandfathers WWII service record I see that he was based in the Admiralty with D.N.1 or D.N.I. I can't find any information about this section - does anyone know what it is ? Thanks 80.189.16.70 (talk) 18:27, 14 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Try Naval Intelligence Division. DexDor (talk) 22:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The Board
The ACNS was not a member of the Board.Seadowns (talk) 17:14, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes he was see just one official source here from Hansard on 9 February 1942 in UK Houses of Parliament/House of Commons debate announcing the composition of the Board of Admiralty see further down That the Members of the Board shall be, Four Assistant Chiefs of Naval Staff http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1942/feb/17/board-of-admiralty. --Navops47 (talk) 18:27, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I've learnt something! There was not just one ACNS on the Board in 1942, but four. However, I don't think that can have lasted very long. In its concluding, peacetime years, the ACNS was not a member, nor was the merchant shipping chief. Seadowns (talk) 10:06, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 31 December 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Consensus for this move to demote British admiralty from primary topic; a further move clarifying the eventual location of the British admiralty may be filed if desired. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  05:08, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

– If there is a primary topic for the word Admiralty, it's probably admiralty law, or possibly the rank of admiral. I can say with high confidence that the primary topic is not a single country's government department that has not existed for over 50 years - especially considering how many other countries have a department called admiralty. In my view, the word admiralty has no primary topic and should be a disambiguation page. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 00:34, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Admiralty → British Admiralty
 * Admiralty (disambiguation) → Admiralty
 * Support. It is British, not international.  —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:35, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Neutral for now. I would support the move, but would recommend Office of the Admiralty and Marine Affairs as the target.  This was the official title of the organization, and emphasises the fact that the article is about one particular incarnation of the government department responsible for the Navy, rather than its entire history from Ethelred the Unready to the present day, which "British Admiralty" might imply. Tevildo (talk) 23:21, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Article Name

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Although this discussion hasn't been formally opened as a RM, it has all hallmarks of one, so I'll give it a formal close. After a month of discussion, I find that there is consensus to move the article to Admiralty (United Kingdom). There is no consensus whether it is the primary topic for "Admiralty", so it may be open to further debate; currently, Admiralty is a dab page and all links are sorted out, so nothing is technically broken. At minimum, I will move this article's entry to the top of the dab page. No such user (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately I did not see the move discussion until my watchlist was filled this morning with edits changing the link. I do not think the name "British Admiralty" is appropriate. We normally disambiguate "Common name (disambiguator)" rather than "Disambiguator common name". I think it unfortunate that the discussion was closed after so few responses, perhaps to be expected given the time of year. DuncanHill (talk) 09:22, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Definitely incorrect article naming, and I suspect it will turn out that this Admiralty is primary topic on EN wikipedia. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:36, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Endorse concerns. Relevant projects and more input should have obtained before move Lyndaship (talk) 12:41, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Concur; I see no evidence was presented to support whether this article is the primary topic or not, only vague, unsubstantiated assertions. Has anyone looked even at rudimentary stats like google hits? Until we actually look at data, we ought to revert the page move. Parsecboy (talk) 12:51, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The only argument that this 50-years defunct government department is primary topic for a common word, is a British superiority complex. However, if you have a different title in mind, the requested move closer did suggest a second request. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:07, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @: I regard that as being British as a personal attack and please considering withdrawing it.Djm-leighpark (talk) 08:05, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not that the department was renamed 50 years ago that diminishes it's importance, but that it controlled the predominant navy in the world for 200 years that makes it significant. By my quick estimation there are over 4000 incoming links to this article, and less than 500 to Admiralty, and most of those are from non-article pages or look like they are about the British Admiralty. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:39, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Despite Oiyarbepsy's disparaging assertions, this organisation has been known as the Admiralty for several hundred years. Even today the term is understood to be that part of MOD relating to the Royal Navy.  It is completely unacceptable for the page to have been moved after such a cursory discussion, without advertising it on the relevant project pages and soliciting a wider participation.  The move needs to be reversed. - Nick Thorne talk  07:50, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Endorse concerns: Concerns are failure to engage at project level for a controversial move, failure to observe impact analysis, failure to point to -point to previous discussion from DAB page which simply points to itself and failure clearly point to previous primary topic in the DAB. The move was not an unreasonable topic to raise but appropriate notifications do not appear to have been made, the fact the the move might be contentions was either not considered or deliberately ignored and and the move itself was technically not done with due diligence as far as I can tell.Djm-leighpark (talk) 08:05, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Wait, hold on a second - Don't we have bots that notify Wikiprojects of things like deletion and move discussions? I followed the process exactly as described at the requested moves page, so if there is an issue of key people not getting notified, there is clearly something fundamentally wrong with our processes here. When you have discussion forums with complex procedures, no one should be expected to notify Wikiprojects on top of all that, that's simply not reasonable. It's also not reasonable to expect people to somehow know what will be controversial ahead of time if there is no notes on either talk page. And if there was previous discussion about the primary topic I didn't see it - unless it was buried in the archives of what is now British Admiralty instead of at the disambiguation page. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 08:16, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ignorance is no excuse. In what possible universe did you think this move would not be controversial?  Competence is required. - Nick Thorne talk  09:46, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, now you're just being a jerk. I figured it wouldn't be controversial under the idea that the article was probably created long long ago and only had that title because no one thought it would be ambiguous at the time. And now things have changed. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 17:16, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And I'm totally seeing the irony of being Competence-is-required by a guy who is incapable of paying attention to their watchlist. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 17:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well I don't spend all my time monitoring my watchlist, I have a life outside of Wikipedia. I maintain that anyone with the slightest knowledge of things naval would realise the move would be controversial  That you didn't see this says a lot about the superficial way the discussion was done before the move and your apparent lack of any in depth understanding of the subject. - Nick Thorne talk  01:28, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @: I always support real life stuff. And with a highly vulnerable relative getting a within-hospital Covid-19 transmission a few days ago I can think of plenty of reasons for not keeping an eye on the watchlist.  This actually wasn't on my watchlist, it was the change of broken links on multiple articles on my watchlist which brought it to my attention (and my first thought was I had been making a spelling mistake).  As proposer you have demonstrated a non neutral viewpoint to "British superiority complex" and did not indicate the an impact analysis on the move proposal.  You are now calling someone a "jerk".  Have you thanked  for onsiderable time cleaning up the results of this move?  Closer  please note and please check what links here impact analysis in future.  Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 08:46, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If you link to WP:CIR, you are being a jerk, based on the inherent nature of that page. Period. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:26, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You need to lay off the personal attacks and prejudice. Either engage constructively or withdraw. DuncanHill (talk) 20:29, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Linking to WP:CIR is a personal attack because it's explicitly saying that the other person is not competent. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:32, 9 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The descriptive term “British Admiralty” gets used.
 * 1. https://mdnautical.com/233-british-admiralty
 * 2. https://www.geographicus.com/P/ctgy&Category_Code=admiralty
 * 3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03071841109434573
 * Not British sources? That goes to the point of the move. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:26, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Looking at these examples: 1. The term used is British Admiralty Charts, British is used in this context as an adjective to the compound noun "Admiralty Charts", so this example is irrelevant to this discussion. 2. British Admiralty Office is used as the heading and lead of the article, the term "Admiralty" is used without qualifier a further 8 times in the text including the line Prior to the founding of the Admiralty surveying and creation of nautical charts... 'nuff said. 3. This is a translation of a German journal, consequently it sheds no light on the subject of English usage of the term Admiralty. I haven't bothered to look for instances of use of the term Admiralty without the British qualifier as I am sure anyone with more than the most superficial familiarity with things naval will be well aware that the term is used in English almost exclusively to mean the Admiralty of the United Kingdom and that topic is way beyond any reasonable interpretation of being the primary topic for the name. - Nick Thorne talk 09:38, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh dear. If, indeed this article should not be the primary topic (which I don't think has been proven), it should be at Admiralty (United Kingdom) or similar. As it is one of the primary topics this article should be clearly linked at the top of the disambiguation page, not as the 22nd link on it. Many of the incoming redirects need to be be changed from the disambiguation page to the British Admiralty page (or whatever it ends up as), including British admiralty, Old Admiralty, Ripley Building, Old Admiralty Building, United Kingdom Admiralty, Commissioners of the Admiralty, Department of Admiralty. I also think there is a good claim that The Admiralty should redirect here (with a hatnote back to the disambiguation page). The definitive article seems to rule out any reference to Admiralty law or the rank of admiral, which are claimed as the primary topics. I look forward to a broader discussion on this move - Dumelow (talk) 10:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: I have been working on fixing the several-thousand incoming links to "Admiralty" over the past few days since the move was carried out. The vast majority of links have been intended for the entity described in this article, which is consistent with the topic having occupied the base page name, but there have been exceptions. About a dozen links were intended for Admiralty, Hong Kong, a handful were intended for each of Admiralty law and Admiralty court, one was intended for Admiralty, Singapore, and one was intended for Admiralty, Saint Petersburg. BD2412  T 17:10, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If it turns out that this move is overturned and either reverted to the old title or changed to a different one, I will be glad to make the necessary link fixes. I would also note that there were instances where the text I have edited specifically said either " the British Admiralty " (for which I merely extended the link to include "British") or " British Admiralty ", for which I merely removed the piped portion. BD2412  T 17:24, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * But you won't need to. Whatever happens, British Admiralty would become a redirect to the new title and all the links will still work fine. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:31, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Update. I have finished fixing incoming links. My first run only addressed capitalized used of Admiralty. There were a few dozen links to the lowercase usage, admiralty, which generally tended to refer to the area of law. BD2412  T 20:48, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with Admiralty (United Kingdom) or the previous name, but not this.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The article could go to Admiralty (United Kingdom) in the interim, and if the consensus is that it is the primary topic then Admiralty could be a redirect to it. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:11, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * We don't redirect primary topic titles to disambiguated titles. Doing so would almost automatically result in the article being moved back to the undisambiguated titled. BD2412  T 20:41, 9 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Support: Per Move to Admiralty (United Kingdom) as intermediate measure then if the consensus is that it is the primary topic then Admiralty could be a redirect to it.08:31, 9 January 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djm-leighpark (talk • contribs)
 * Comment - Despite Oiyarbepsy's "...high confidence that the primary topic is not a single country's government department that has not existed for over 50 years", both incoming links and pageviews suggest it might have been.--Ykraps (talk) 08:46, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not particularly a party to the dispute, but might I suggest The Admiralty? BD2412  T 21:00, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That’s even more Britain-centric. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:06, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * How so? I don't see any other topic on the page known as "The Admiralty" at all, and use of the definite article would definitely not be applicable to places like Admiralty, Hong Kong and Admiralty, Singapore, or concepts like Admiralty law and Admiralty court, which appear from the disambiguation effort to be the next most common uses. Compare The Pentagon. BD2412  T 00:27, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The German, Netherlands and Russian admiralties would have been named "the Admiralty" after first use. Eg: Albrecht von Stosch was head of the Admiralty from 1872 to 1883.  The other pentagons are not nearly as significant as the other admiralties. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:44, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The previous was ambiguous, and the correct is good enough Natural Disambiguation which beats parenthetical disambiguation, per WP:QUALIFIER.
 * https://www.shippingwondersoftheworld.com/british-admiralty.html
 * https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=The+British+admiralty&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true
 * —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:06, 10 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Have you looked at use of ngram of use of British Admiralty versus Admiralty or The Admiralty versus British Admiralty? The drop off post 1950s matches with the change of name of the department. GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:41, 10 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Endorse. Admiralty (United Kingdom) would be correct, but this needed far wider discussion. It was New Year, you know. Should have been kept open much longer. It should have been blatantly obvious to anyone with any knowledge of the subject that this was controversial and that one support vote and one neutral comment was not anywhere near enough for consensus. In my opinion, the "British Admiralty" is the clear primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:37, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Like Necrothesp I too suspect the "British Admiralty" is the primary topic. Like several above I too endorse Admiralty (United Kingdom) as a preliminary move pending the outcome of a broader discussion. To the proposer I suggest a simple note on the relevant project (in this case MILHIST) talk page for future moves. Cavalryman (talk) 03:27, 11 January 2021 (UTC).
 * Our systems are irreparably broken then, because even if I had known to post about on a Wikiproject, I would have posted on WP UK and not Military History. And I throw on these project banners as part of new page patrol all the time, so imagine what it's like for someone who doesn't know wikiprojects at all. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:35, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Choosing to notify one project and not another when both are listed at the top of this talkpage is personal editor choice not a system problem. I note though if you are on the mobile version you don't see the talkpage header - which is a bit of a problem. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:11, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oiyarbepsy, Do you not see the irony of objecting to my CIR comment and then you say this? - Nick Thorne <sup style="color: darkblue">talk 09:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Listed for Move Review. See Move_review/Log/2021_January. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:41, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Endorse Admiralty (United Kingdom) Considering the number of other things and places with the name of Admiralty, it makes far more sense to me for that to be the disambiguation page. So this article would be better off at a UK specific title. Silver  seren C 20:45, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Accept Admiralty (United Kingdom) as in compliance with wikipedia naming practices Lyndaship (talk) 13:55, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose move. I think "British Admiralty" is a perfectly good use of WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION, which is generally preferred for titles over a parenthetical disambiguation. I also object to this informal move discussion. If this page is going to be moved again, it should be nominated at Requested moves. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * From RM "The requested moves process is not mandatory, and sometimes an informal discussion at the article's talk page can help reach consensus." We've had the discussion above, we could move it (and be damned) since there's no technical obstacle, sort the redirects and get to the PrimaryTopic discussion. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:21, 3 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I also object to this discussion. Some people are overstating the problem with "British Admiralty", and this discussion is an informal waste of time.  Do it properly.  For good or ill, Move review was opened, and is still open.  It needs to be closed before seriously continuing this discussion.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:54, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This thread was opened on 7 Jan, the Move review on 27 Jan as a result of this discussion. It is mistaken (at best) to object to this thread on the grounds that another was opened afterwards. DuncanHill (talk) 23:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This thread began as an informal discussion, which is fine. There needs to be a formal discussion to reverse or completely change the previous formal RM, even if poorly participated.  The MR is a very formal discussion, and it effectively prevents a formal RM being started.  As I said there, I think it was ill-advised, I think it should be closed now, and a fresh RM can be started immediately.  It can of course refer to this thread.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:25, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The current MR needs to be allowed to complete.  The original RM was improperly closed and it is important that the resultant fait accompli not be allowed to stand.  Reversing the previous move will demonstrate that this sort of action will not be tolerated and help prevent setting a precedent that could potentially be used by other less responsible editors to game the system. - <b style="color: darkblue">Nick Thorne</b> <sup style="color: darkblue">talk  01:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * There is no real diagreement then. The MR discussion should be closed, in whatever way, and then the RM discussion resume/restart.  My feelings on the propriety of the previous close are not strong.  Obviously, several people feel they wanted to contribute and missed out, and the discussion wasn't strong, so it should continue/restart/whatever, but as a matter of process, the MR discussion needs closing first.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


 * Well, User:No such user, that was snappily done. While I don't share the vehemence of opposition to British Admiralty, the current Admiralty (United Kingdom) works fine, better than the ambiguous Admiralty.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:31, 5 February 2021 (UTC)


 * So close the move review "as moot" because there's a discussion here, and then close the discussion here at the same time. When you say "as moot" do you mean "not worth discussing further" or do you mean "remains debatable"? DuncanHill (talk) 00:50, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Moot in American sense, i.e. "not worth discussing further". I forgot about that difference. No such user (talk) 08:04, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Guys, just be happy that the drama is over and done with, sheesh. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 06:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Bad article naming to include “United Kingdom”
This was a very bad name change, not least as the United Kingdom did not come into being until 1801. “British Admiralty” had the advantage of covering both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the later period. However, the Admiralty existed even before 1707, and I agree with and others that it is the primary topic of “Admiralty”. Moonraker (talk) 00:39, 2 August 2021 (UTC)