Career Patterns and Characteristics of British Naval Officers

Abstract

This study examines the social backgrounds and career perspectives of Royal Navy officers with some limited comparisons to the military of other nations (mainly the United States). Although its dominant objectives are empirical and descriptive in nature, inevitably the study emerged from a set of assumptions, implicit and explicit, concerning the nature of military systems and their functions in society. Foremost among these are that the society's dominant value patterns and social structure play key parts in moulding the military and, at the same time, the character of the society's military institutions affects the development and maintenance of the society's value patterns and social structure. 1 Great Britain, along with France and Prussia, was among the very first nations to develop a truly professionalized military establishment.2 For this reason alone, its military system deserves extensive study. A number of studies have demonstrated that the dominant value patterns of Great Britain differ markedly from those of the United States. Where American society is relatively equalitarian and universalistic in emphasis, the British system is somewhat more elitist and ascriptive. The military organizations of these two countries should reflect these respective value emphases.3 The increasing access of all socio-economic groups to the military establishment was not found in Abrams' studies of the British military which revealed a considerably more restricted and aristocratic group.4 Likewise Razzell's5 data on the British army demonstrated that although the status criterion had changed since the