278 Chapter Eightsage of bigger and bigger naval bills. Each naval building program, in
turn, opened the path for further technological change, making older
ships obsolete and requiring still larger appropriations for the next
round of building.
How much weight to assign technological innovation as an autono
mous element in this pattern of escalating expenditure is impossible to
say. What one can discern, however, is a change in its character. Be
fore the 1880s, invention had nearly always been the work of individ
uals, sometimes with the help of a supporting cast of technicians and
skilled mechanics who built prototypes and otherwise assisted the in
ventor himself in embodying his idea in material form. Armstrong and
Whitworth had both worked on these lines, using the resources of
their respective firms to develop new models for guns and other kinds
of machinery as they personally saw fit. Development costs, such as
they were, had to be borne by the entrepreneur, and his only prospect
of recovering them and making a profit depended on being able to sell
his invention to skeptical buyers—whether these were private con
sumers in civil life or officers of the armed forces. Risks in the arma
ments field were very great. As Whitworth discovered in 1863–64,
even a definitely superior product might not be accepted by fiscally
and technically conservative officers and officials.
Under these circumstances, investment in arms research and devel
opment was sure to remain comparatively modest. Even so, as we have
seen in the preceding chapter, a few innovators—Armstrong, Dreyse,
Krupp, and their like—were able to revolutionize armaments simply
by bringing military technology to the level of civil engineering. But
this mid-nineteenth-century style of private invention was quite in
capable of carrying naval engineering to the heights actually attained
between 1884 and 1914. Even big and successful firms, like Krupp
and Armstrong, could not risk the ballooning costs of experiment and
development, had they not been assured of a purchaser ahead of time.
From the 1880s onward, however, the Admiralty routinely pro
vided the assurance private firms required. Navy technicians set out to
specify the desirable performance characteristics for a new gun, en
gine, or ship, and, in effect, challenged engineers to come up with ap
propriate designs. Invention thus became deliberate. Within limits,
tactical and strategic planning began to shape warships instead of the
other way around. Above all, Admiralty officials ceased to set brakes
on innovation by sitting in judgment on novelties proposed by the
trade. Instead, technically proficient officers clustered around the
dynamic figure of Admiral Fisher to hurry innovations on. With the