Selborne divided serving engineering officers into three cohorts whose formal status had developed differently. Pre-1902 naval engineers received military-branch status in 1915, while officers who entered under the 1902 common-entry scheme had been classed with executive officers until the disputed order. A 1922 modification created a third group whose members had been expressly promised that engineering specialization would not remove them from the military branch. Discontinuation was not a clean return to an older system because successive promises and classifications left every cohort with a distinct grievance when the Admiralty changed the settlement again.
Chapter · 9:14-10:53
Three engineering-officer groups faced different status grievances
Selborne's 1926 intervention distinguishes pre-1902 engineers, common-entry engineers, and officers trained under the 1922 modification before explaining why a new Admiralty order aggrieved all three.