Tryon as a possible First Sea Lord before Fisher

Tryon's death removed the TA system's leading advocate and a possible future First Sea Lord. He was a reform-minded admiral interested in infrastructure that could accommodate future ships and in long-range gunnery before those priorities became dominant. A Tryon tenure before Admiral Fisher might have accelerated institutional and technical changes already gathering momentum. The suggestion that a dreadnought-like ship could have appeared before 1905 is a cautious counterfactual about leadership and timing. Such a ship would have emerged from a confluence of ideas whose timing Tryon might have influenced.