The treaty category that small carriers never received

The 1930 negotiations missed an opportunity to distinguish fleet carriers from smaller light or escort carriers. Larger ships were already understood to be more efficient for fleet aviation, yet fears that Japan might mass-produce small carriers shaped the rules. Henderson had only just taken charge of the Royal Navy's carrier organization, while the solutions he would develop by 1933 still lay ahead. British experience with aviation in First World War anti-submarine operations and prewar studies of merchant conversions show that convoy carriers were under consideration long before war began. The missed category narrowed the options available for both fleet aviation and convoy protection before the wartime emergency.