Selborne - Fisher scheme The Selborne - Fisher scheme , or Selborne scheme refers to an effort by John Fisher , 1st Baron Fisher , Second Sea Lord , approved by William Palmer , 2nd Earl of Selborne , First Lord of the Admiralty , in 1903 to combine the military and engineering branches of the Royal Navy . The main goal was to return control over the movement of a ship to the military officer . Background . In 1902 , Fisher returned to the UK ( having been Commander of the Mediterranean Fleet ) as Second Sea Lord in charge of personnel . At this time engineering officers , which had become increasingly important in the fleet as it became steadily more dependent upon machinery , were still largely looked down upon by command officers . Fisher considered it would be better for the navy if the two branches could be merged , as had been done in the past with navigation which similarly had once been a completely separate specialty . He wanted the Navy to have one system of supply , one system of entry and one system of training . His solution was to merge the cadet training of military and engineer officers , and revise the curriculum so that it provided a suitable grounding to later go on to either path . The proposal was initially resisted by the remainder of the board of Admiralty , but Fisher convinced them of the benefits of the changes . Integration . The scheme was announced in 1903 , but the amalgamation of the military and engineering branches was completed in November 1905 when the Cawdor Memorandum was published , which integrated the enlisted portion of the engineering branch , the stokers , into the military branch . As part of the scheme , cadets would enter the service between the ages of 12 and 13 under the same conditions , would be trained together under the same system until they passed the rank of sub - lieutenant when they would be distributed between the military branch , the engineering branch , and the Royal Marines , although ultimately the Royal Marines did not participate in the scheme . Three months after the scheme was announced , a new college was created at Osborne House , Queen Victoria ' s old home on the Isle of Wight . A new facility was also built in Dartmouth to replace Britannia , and once it was completed in 1910 the Royal Naval Engineering College at Keyham was closed . The old rank of mate was revived in 1913 as part of the scheme for the accelerated promotion of promising enlisted personnel to become engineers . Mates ranked with , but after , sub - lieutenants and messed separately . In addition , promotion from Mate ( E ) was to the old Engineer Lieutenant rank , not to Lieutenant ( E ) . Integration reversed . After World War I , opposition to the scheme gave rise to a movement to re - segregate the executive and engineering branches because during the war , officers were not able to be equally proficient at both engineering and executive duties . As part of this movement , the Royal Naval Engineering College was reopened in 1919 , and in 1922 engineering training began for midshipmen , instead of sub - lieutenants . In 1921 , the naval college at Osborne was no longer needed and was closed . By 1925 , there were five branches of the Service : Military , Medical , Accountant , Naval Instructor , and Artisan . That year , an Order in Council ended the scheme , splitting the service into 12 categories : Executive , Engineer , Medical , Dental , Accountant and Instructor Officers , Chaplains , Shipwrights , Ordinance and Electrical Officers , Schoolmasters and Wardmasters . Shortly afterwards , the ranks of Midshipman ( E ) and Sub - lieutenant ( E ) appeared in Orders in Council for the first time . In 1931 mate was abandoned again , and mates were re - mustered as sub - lieutenants . The scheme left behind common entry , so all candidates for the engineering branch entered the Navy by the same route as those in the executive branch .