The Navy Records Society was established in 1893 as a scholarly society to publish historical documents that illustrated the history of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. Professor Sir John Knox Laughton

John Knox Laughton

Sir John Knox Laughton Kt was a British naval historian and arguably the first to argue for the importance of the subject as an independent field of study...

 and Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge were the key leaders who organized the Society, basing it on the model of earlier organisations such as the Hakluyt Society

Hakluyt Society

Founded in 1846, the Hakluyt Society is a registered charity based in London, England, which seeks to advance knowledge and education by the publication of scholarly editions of primary records of voyages, travels and other geographical material...

 and the Camden Society

Camden Society

The Camden Society, named after the English antiquary and historian William Camden, was founded in 1838 in London to publish early historical and literary materials, both unpublished manuscripts and new editions of rare printed books....

. The American naval historian, Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan

Alfred Thayer Mahan

Alfred Thayer Mahan was a United States Navy flag officer, geostrategist, and historian, who has been called "the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century." His concept of "sea power" was based on the idea that countries with greater naval power will have greater worldwide...

, was one of the first overseas members to join the Navy Records Society.

Between 1893 and 2006, the Society published 150 volumes of documents on every period of British naval history

Naval history

Naval history is the area of military history concerning war at sea and the subject is also a sub-discipline of the broad field of maritime history....

, and continues to publish two new volumes annually. To mark its centenary in 1993, the Society published a general volume of documents that illustrated the broad sweep of its complementary areas of interest, including Naval warfare

Naval warfare

Naval warfare is combat in and on seas, oceans, or any other major bodies of water such as large lakes and wide rivers.-History:Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Land warfare would seem, initially, to be irrelevant and entirely removed from warfare on the open ocean,...

, Naval administration, and Naval social history

Social history

Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...

: British Naval Documents, 1204-1960, edited by members John B. Hattendorf, R. J. B. Knight

R. J. B. Knight

R. J. B. Knight is one of Britain's leading naval historians of the 18th century, a former Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, and author of a distinguished biography of Admiral Lord Nelson....

, A. W. H. Pearsall

A. W. H. Pearsall

Alan William Halliday Pearsall, was a naval and railway historian, who served for thirty years from 1955 to 1985 on the staff of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich....

, N. A. M. Rodger, A. B. Sainsbury, and Geoffrey Till

Geoffrey Till

Geoffrey Till, FKC is a British naval historian and Professor of Maritime Studies in the Defence Studies Department of King's College London.-Early life and education:...

.