How long common-entry engineers waited for captain

The dates reveal how slowly a personnel reform proves itself in a hierarchical service. Harold T. C. Walker became the first Osborne common-entry officer to reach captain on 31 December 1931. The first seventeen officers selected to specialize in engineering had reached the Royal Naval College Greenwich in October 1913, but John B. Sedgwick and Denis C. Ford did not become captains in the engineering branch until June 1936. Their three-decade progression, and the five-year gap behind Walker, show why early controversy could outrun evidence about whether common entry would genuinely improve engineering officers' status and access to senior rank.