The Navy Records Society was founded in 1893 by a small group of historians, naval officers, publicists and statesmen led by Professor Sir John Knox Laughton and Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, to publish original materials on the history of the Royal Navy.

The Society has published volumes of original documents and papers almost every year since its foundation. The volumes cover all the major figures in British naval history, such as Nelson, Beatty and Cunningham, and a wide range of topics, from signals and shipbuilding to strategy and politics.

In 2006 the NRS published its 150th volume. This was Part 2 of the Cunningham Papers, edited by Michael Simpson, lately Reader in History at the University of Wales, Swansea, and formerly the Society's General Editor. The volume comprises selections from the private and public correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean during the Second World War and later First Sea Lord.

The publication was marked by a reception in St James's Palace on 29 March 2006 attended by the Society's Patron, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, who, as a midshipman in HMS Valiant in March 1941, served under Admiral Cunningham's command at the Battle of Matapan, and by former First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jock Slater, a kinsman of Admiral Cunningham.