He received his master's degree in 1920 and completed his doctorate in British history in 1924 with a dissertation on Forests and Sea Power: The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy.

[4] Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal personally encouraged Albion to study the history of the formulation of American naval policy.

[citation needed] As a result of this, Albion eventually published two important works: Forrestal and the Navy and Makers of Naval Policy, 1798-1947.

Albion also served as vice president of the Naval Historical Foundation and as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Economic History and the American Neptune.

The honoris causa citation reads "(...) who beginning his career as a brilliant undergraduate editor-in-chief of the Orient has developed into one of the most eminent of American naval historians and so recognized at home and abroad; able administrator; for several years directing the summer sessions at Princeton; brought up in Portland, the beautiful town that is seated by the sea, he has written interesting books on the Merchant Marine also; representing today his class on its thirtieth reunion and gladly honored as one of the many scholars and teachers who have in the academic world bound with friendly ties Princeton and Bowdoin.

The preface states: "The year 1975 closes half a century since the publication in 1926 of Robert Greenhalgh Albion's classic study of the English navy's timber problem, Forests and Sea Power.

Contributors included William A. Baker, Harold L. Burstyn, John H. Kemble, Benjamin W. Labaree, Archibald R. Lewis, Clark G. Reynolds, Jeffrey J. Safford, Edward W. Sloan III, Joan Bentinck-Smith.