On This Day

1850-1899 > Colonial Navies & RN

March 28, 1860

HMCS VICTORIA, (screw steamer), joined the Australian Squadron, HM Ships IRIS, NIGER, CORDELIA, PELORUS, MIRANDA, HARRIET, and ORPHEUS, involved in the second Maori War.

March 10, 1860

CDRE F. B. P. Seymour, CB, RN, was appointed Commodore Commanding the Australia Station, his flagship was HMS PELOROUS. Seymour was a fighting officer, leading the naval forces in the Maori Wars, and in July 1882 as ADML Sir Beauchamp Seymour; he commanded the British Fleet in the capture of Alexandria, Egypt.

June 1, 1859

The Imperial Squadron on the Australia Station consisted of HM Ships IRIS, (26 guns sailing); PELORUS, (21 guns screw); NIGER, (14 guns screw); ELK, (12 guns sailing); and CORDELIA, (11 guns screw).

May 15, 1859

CDRE W. Loring, RN, in HMS IRIS, offered to exchange Fort Macquarie for Garden Island as a base for RN ships in Australia.

March 26, 1859

CDRE William Loring, CB, was appointed Commodore commanding the newly established Australian Squadron of the Royal Navy, which became independent of the C-in-C, India. His Flagship was HMS IRIS, and HM Ships NIGER, CORDELIA, ELK, and PELORUS completed the squadron.

March 25, 1859

The Australia Station was established as a separate command. The Station was defined in a minute from the Admiralty: “Australia Station:- Bounded on the North by the Parallel of 10 degrees of South Latitude, on the East by the Meridian of 170th degree of West Longitude, on the South by the Antarctic Circle, and on the West by the Meridian of 75th degree of East Longitude”. Ships from the Australia Station were involved in operations from Malaya to the west coast of America and the Pacific islands.

February 23, 1859

Boats from HMVS VICTORIA rescued the crew of the sailing vessel B. NORRIS, which caught fire and sank in Port Phillip.

October 20, 1858

The Victorian Government approved the building of a graving dock at Williamstown.

October 9, 1858

The hulk MELBOURNE was the first ship to be slipped at Williamstown Dockyard, VIC.

June 28, 1858

The Admiralty approved an expenditure of from £4000 to £6000 for rendering Garden Island, Sydney, available for the repair of HM ships.

April 1, 1858

The following ships were on the Australia Station:-Sailing vessels; IRIS, (26 guns), SAPPHO, (12 guns), and BRAMBLE, (tender).Steam screw vessel; CORDELIA, (11 guns).

February 20, 1858

HM Ships ELK, BOSCAWEN, and HMVS VICTORIA, searched Bass Strait and the south coast of Victoria for HMS SAPPHO which vanished without trace on a passage to Sydney.

February 4, 1858

The Naval Brigade from the screw corvette HMS PELORUS, (CAPT F. P. B. Seymour, RN), landed at Rangoon to garrison Meaday Fort. PELORUS was flagship on the Australia Station in 1860.

July 18, 1857

HMS PELORUS, (screw steam corvette), was commissioned at Plymouth, England, under CAPT Frederick B. P. Seymour, RN. PELORUS was flagship of the Australia Station in 1860, and during that year participated in the Battle of Taranaki in New Zealand. In this battle, CAPT Seymour was seriously wounded while leading a naval brigade of 600 men against the Maori defences.

March 26, 1857

HMVS VICTORIA, (sloop of war), trained her guns on prison hulks anchored off Williamstown, VIC, during disturbances following the murder of John Price, (Inspector General of Prisons), by convicts.

May 31, 1856

The sloop-of war HMCS VICTORIA, (CMDR W. H. Norman, RN), arrived at Port Phillip, Melbourne, VIC, on her maiden voyage from the United Kingdom. VICTORIA was proclaimed as the ‘first vessel of war built to the order of a British colony’, thus launching Australia’s first colonial navy.

April 8, 1856

The Williamstown division of the Victorian Marine Artillery Corps was formed to defend Port Phillip.

December 12, 1855

The steam war sloop HMVS VICTORIA, (CAPT Lockyer, RN), sailed from the Thames on her maiden voyage to Australia.

October 17, 1855

CAPT William Loring, CB, RN, commanded HMS FURIOUS in the attack on Kinburn Split in the Crimea. CAPT Loring was the Commodore Commanding the Australia Station from 1859 to 1860.

June 30, 1855

HMVS VICTORIA, (sloop of war), was launched on the River Thames, London.

April 4, 1855

HMCS SPITFIRE, (ketch), was launched in Cuthbert’s shipyard, Sydney. The vessel was described at the time as 65 tons displacement, 51 ft long, 16 ft 6 in beam, ketch rigged, and armed with a single 32-pound swivel gun on a traversing carriage. The Empire newspaper reported: ‘SPITFIRE they named her, and one would like to know why the Governor stayed away from her launching’. Despite the newspaper’s lack of confidence the vessel served the colony well, voyaging as far as northern Queensland on Government business. SPITFIRE was not the first warship built in Australia, but she was the first built for Australia’s defence.

May 31, 1853

HMS BRAMBLE was loaned to the NSW Government as a diving bell tender at Cockatoo Island. In 1873 the vessel was reported as a light ship. It was finally sold out of service in 1876.

October 9, 1852

A special Admiralty committee examined the problems of manning the RN. Recommendations made by the committee led to wide-sweeping changes in 1853, which included the abolition of the press gang, increased pay rates, and pensions for continuous service.

July 20, 1852

VADM Sir W. R. Creswell, KCMG, KBE, ‘Father of the RAN’, was born at Gibraltar where his father was the postmaster.