Commissioning Official History versus Paying for Official History

Abstract

Following the conclusion of the First World War the Royal Navy was so keen to learn the lessons of the conflict that they commissioned no less than five different types of official history and were also involved in the production of two others. No other department commissioned quite so much official history, and the Admiralty was far from open about what it was doing, hiding the resources needed for some series in the estimates for others. As a result, throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it found itself engaged in a protracted dispute with the Treasury about what was being done and how to pay for it. This article explores why the Admiralty sought so many different routes into the historical record and charts the numerous battles between the Admiralty and the Treasury over the writing and publication of these histories. In so doing, the article highlights the navy’s understanding of the term ‘official history’, the value that the service placed upon such histories, the different value accorded to them by the Treasury, as well as the underestimate of the time and effort required to produce such histories by those responsible for the national finances.