Second Secretary to the Admiralty

The office of Second Secretary to the Admiralty was a former government position in the Admiralty of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Assistants to the Secretary of the Admiralty (later called the First Secretary) were initially only intermittently appointed, being sometimes designated "joint secretary" and sometimes "deputy secretary". Appointments became regular from 1756, and the title of the office was established as "Second Secretary" on 13 January 1783. In the 19th century, it increasingly became the case that the First Secretary of the Admiralty was a member of the Government, while the Second Secretary was a civil servant, and the titles of the offices were changed to reflect this in 1869, the First Secretary becoming the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty and the Second Secretary the Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty.

Office-holders

 * George Clarke, joint secretary, 20 May 1702 to 25 October 1705.
 * Thomas Corbett, deputy secretary, later joint secretary, 25 June 1728 to 13 October 1742.
 * Robert Osborne, deputy secretary from 17 November 1744.
 * John Cleveland, second secretary, 4 August 1746 to 1 May 1750.
 * John Milnes, deputy secretary from 15 June 1756.
 * Philip Stephens, second secretary from 16 October 1759.
 * Charles Fearne, deputy secretary from 28 June 1764.
 * Sir George Jackson, deputy secretary from 11 November 1766.

Second Secretary
Title established as Second Secretary in January 1783.
 * John Ibbotson, deputy and second secretary from 3 June 1782.
 * William Marsden, from 3 March 1795.
 * Benjamin Tucker, from 21 January 1804.
 * John Barrow, from 22 May 1804.
 * Benjamin Tucker, from 10 February 1806.
 * Sir John Barrow (created a baronet in 1835), from 9 April 1807.
 * Captain William Alexander Baillie Hamilton, from 28 April 1845.
 * Thomas Phinn, from 1855
 * William Govett Romaine, from 1857

Permanent Secretary
In 1869 the office was renamed Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty.
 * Vernon Lushington, from 1869 to 1877.
 * Rear-Admiral Robert Hall, jointly with Lushington from 1872, and then alone from 1877 until 1882.
 * Captain George Tryon, from 13 June 1882.
 * Sir Evan Macgregor, from 2 April 1884
 * Sir C. Inigo Thomas, from 1 April 1907.