Why was the Royal Navy slow to adopt deck-edge lifts?

Why did the Royal Navy take so long to adopt deck-edge lifts?

Experience of the North Sea sweeping aircraft from exposed decks made British designers wary. Small carriers intended for other stations might accept that exposure to gain hangar space.

British designers had considered deck-edge lifts, but experience in the North Sea encouraged caution about exposed aircraft-handling arrangements. In one unspecified year of the First World War, the Royal Naval Air Service lost more aircraft swept from seaplane-carrier decks than it lost to enemy action. Accidents remained the largest loss category. That experience left a concern about exposing aircraft to heavy weather. A small carrier intended for distant stations could make a different tradeoff, gaining hangar space by moving the lift machinery to the deck edge.