The origins and foundation of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich

This article examines the conditions that led to the overhaul of higher education in the Royal Navy from 1869 to 1873 and the factors leading to the establishment of a college at Greenwich. It explains how the impetus for reform, with its attendant increase in costs, was established by an admiralty administration acknowledged as one of the most financially retrenched of the century and demonstrates the extent to which political expediency was woven into the proper requirement for change. © Institute of Historical Research 1999.