Russell and Byng helped establish an expectation that both the senior naval lord and the First Lord needed enough expertise to run a complex maritime ministry. Later structures insulated ministers from the services and reduced the technical knowledge expected of them. The Admiralty and Navy Board already administered food, healthcare, infrastructure, personnel, and welfare programs on a state-like scale. Their need to translate between political decision-makers and specialists made close cooperation between the First Lord and senior naval lord essential. Professional administration therefore had deep early-modern roots well before nineteenth-century industrial warfare.
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The Admiralty as an early specialist civil service
The Admiralty's technical breadth demanded knowledgeable ministers and resembled a modern civil service before Britain had one on a comparable scale.