History of The Royal Australian Navy - Pre-Federation Navies

Pre-Federation Navies

From the colonisation of Australia in 1788 until 1859, the blue water defence of Australia was provided by detached units of the Royal Navy's East Asia Squadron, based in Sydney. In 1859, Australia was established as a separate Royal Navy squadron; this marked the first occasion the Royal Navy ships had been permanently stationed in Australia. The Royal Navy's Australia Squadron remained the primary naval force in Australian waters until 1913, when the Royal Navy's Australia Station ceased and responsibility handed over to the Royal Australian Navy and its Sydney based depots, dockyards and structures were gifted to the Australian commonwealth.

Before Federation, five of the six self-governing colonies in Australia operated their own Colonial navies. Western Australia did not have a Colonial Naval force. The colonial navies were expanded greatly in the mid-1880s and usually consisted of gunboats and torpedo-boats for coastal defence of harbours and rivers, and naval brigades to man vessels and forts. In 1856, Victoria received its own naval vessel, HMCSS Victoria, which in 1860 was deployed to assist the New Zealand colonial government during the First Taranaki War. When Victoria returned to Australia, the vessel had taken part in several minor actions, with the loss of one crewmember. The deployment of Victoria to New Zealand marked the first occasion that an Australian warship had been deployed overseas. In the years leading up to Federation, Colonial Victoria became the most powerful of all the colonial navies. Victoria had HMVS Cerberus since 1870, as well as HMVS Nelson, three small gunboats and five torpedo-boats. NSW had two very small torpedo boats, and the corvette Wolverine. After Federation all colonial vessels became part of the Commonwealth Naval Forces.