British carrier planning did not begin at the treaty ceiling. Designers explored the carrier they would prefer to build, calculated its tonnage, and then worked backward toward treaty-compliant alternatives. The large body of surviving studies shows that the Royal Navy understood both the advantages of an unrestricted carrier and the compromises imposed by treaty displacement. Figures such as Stanley Goodall and Reginald Henderson connected those operational ambitions to practical hull, machinery, and tonnage choices. Malta later drew on this design tradition once treaty limits and immediate pre-war constraints no longer defined the problem.
Chapter · 3:08-5:03
Treaty limits and the Royal Navy's ideal carrier
Pre-war carrier studies began with an ideal design, then worked back to what treaty tonnage would permit.