Winston Churchill was "First Lord of the Admiralty" from 1911 until his famous blunder at Galipoli in 1915.
But as a German, I don't quite understand what that post entitled. It was supposedly a post akin to a "Minister of the Navy"? But why would there be an entire ministry and minister dedicated only to the navy? Usually countries only have a single Minister of War/Defence who heads the entire military, not just a part of it.
Now Britain did have an extremely large fleet and said fleet was vital in securing its survival, so emphasising that importance by making that its own ministry does make some sense.
But what extra capabilities were gained by making the navy its own ministry, which could not have worked as well as if it had been under a single "Minister of Defence"?
And has there ever been such an equivalent in other countries, or an equivalent solely for the air force?
And why was this post abandoned in 1964 in favour of a single "Minister of Defence"?
But as a German, I don't quite understand what that post entitled. It was supposedly a post akin to a "Minister of the Navy"? But why would there be an entire ministry and minister dedicated only to the navy? Usually countries only have a single Minister of War/Defence who heads the entire military, not just a part of it.
That is a misconception and a bit of a misunderstanding of how we got to how things are today.
Suffice to say that a single "Defense Department" is a much more modern, IE Post WW2 thing for most nations. And that separate Army/Navy departments as co-equal parts of the government with separate civilian chiefs was a very common state of affairs.
For instance, until after WW2 the UK, US, and France all had separate Army/War and Navy departments that were co-equal to each other and whose heads answered only to the executive. Germany is actually something of an exception to the pattern, while the branches had been separate in Imperial Germany, the reformation and consolidation of the armed forces of Weimar into the Reichswehr in 1919 was in many ways a preview of the others. While the consolidation of the branches into a single agency with a single high command was maintained under the Nazi govt with the Wehrmacht.
To get back to why they were separate to begin with though, the branches had very different missions, different interests and political backing, and little inclination to see the other side win out if they were forced to be combined. Hence each would have its own civilian and military head in this setup. In the UK this was the First Lord of the Admiralty and First Sea Lord, in the US this became the Secretary of the Navy and Chief of Naval Operations.
But the enormous scale of World War 2, the maturation of Air Power as the 3rd branch of most militaries, and the level of joint operations across the globe began to change things. The US US combined the War Department and the Navy Dept into the modern Defense Dept in 1947, while also creating an independent Air Force so that the new agency had 3 sub-agencies. With a single civilian Secretary of Defense and a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and under them were the 3 branch secretaries as civilian political appointees, and the 4 branch professional chiefs (the Commandant of the Marine Corps answered to the Secretary of the Navy).
The British to get to your example took a little longer but eventually came to the same place. 1 single head of 1 single agency meant ideally closer cooperation, planning, and less in-fighting, though that is not often the case.
However while the US retained the branch-specific secretaries just at a lower level, no equivalent position was retained by the UK, it was now just 1 single Minister of Defense.
If you are interested in the political and often ugly fights over consolidation and reorganization that occurred after WW2 I am happy to offer some additional reading!