The Royal Navy played a major role in Australia’s settlement. Captain Arthur Phillip RN in the frigate Sirius, with the armed tender Supply, escorted the transports which carried some 1480 people, including nearly 800 convicts. The convoy first put into Botany Bay, then went on to Port Jackson where, on 26 January 1788, a party landed at Sydney Cove, the British flag was hoisted and volleys were fired.

In the years that followed, although no warships were stationed on a regular basis in New South Wales, the Royal Navy kept a watchful eye on the fledgling colony, and a vessel of the East Indies squadron was detached occasionally to visit Port Jackson. It was not until 1821 that a man-of-war was maintained regularly in the colony. This vessel also crossed the Tasman on occasions to inspect the coasts of the colony of New Zealand. In the ensuing twenty years, vessels based on Port Jackson included HM Ships (6th rate) Alligator, Caroline, Conway, Imogene, and Rattlesnake, and the sloops Hyacinth, Pelorus and Zebra.

The task of charting the waters around the Australian coast was pursued steadily by the Royal Navy from the early days of settlement. One of the vessels involved in this task was HMS Beagle, the famous little brig-sloop in which Charles Darwin made his epic world survey voyage in 1831-35.

There was a great stir of excitement amongst the colonists when, in January 1846, the first steam vessel to visit Australian waters arrived in Port Jackson. This was the paddle-steamer HMS Driver, which en route from Hong Kong to New Zealand, had called to replenish her bunkers before sailing for Auckland. The Tasman crossing took eight days.

By the mid-l9th century the Royal Navy’s presence in New South Wales had increased considerably, though Australia still remained part of the East Indies command. Steam was asserting itself as a motive power at sea and the paddle warships Acheron and Torch augmented the sailing vessels based on Port Jackson, which included Calliope and the sloops Electra and Falcon.

In the early 1850s relations between Great Britain and Russia were becoming badly strained. At that same period rich gold strikes were made in New South Wales and in the newly established colony of Victoria. These factors, combined with reports of the sighting of strange warships cruising in the western Pacific, were the cause of much uneasiness amongst the colonists as they realised their vulnerability to outside attack. As concern developed into a state of mild alarm, guns were mounted around Port Jackson and a 65-ton armed ketch, Spitfire, was built in Sydney, while the colony of Victoria ordered the 580-ton sloop-of-war Victoria to be built in England.

The British government too, mindful of the fact that their Australian colonies constituted a rich prize for any would-be attacker, and in response to the colonists’ urgent requests for stronger naval protection, took steps to augment the naval force based on Port Jackson and at the same time to establish Australia as a naval command separate from the East Indies Station.

On 25 March 1859 Captain William Loring of HMS Iris was authorised to hoist a Commodore’s Blue Pendant and to assume command as senior officer of Her Majesty’s Ships on the Australian Station independently of the Commander-in-Chief in India.

So, the Royal Navy’s Australian Station (later formally called the Australia Station), came into being. Loring’s flagship Iris was a sailing frigate, the other vessels under his command being the screw corvettes Pelorus and Niger, and the screw sloop Cordelia - a rather ill-matched collection of vessels and hardly to be rated as a powerful naval force. Nevertheless it was a beginning, and it set the pattern for a squadron which was destined to provide Australia’s defence by sea for many years, until such time as the nation was able to build and maintain a navy of its own.

The Iris sailed for home in 1861, Commodore Loring having transferred his command the year before to Commodore F.P. Seymour, who hoisted his pendant in the screw corvette HMS Pelorus. Although only three years old, Pelorus had already seen much action, including the Indian Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 and the second so-called Opium War in China in the later 1850s. She also took part in the Maori Wars of 1860, in June of which some 60 of her men landed and participated in the operations at Puketakuere.

An interesting vessel on the station in 1859-60 was the screw sloop Niger which, in 1849, had been pitted against the paddle sloop Basilisk during tests in the English Channel to determine the efficiency of the screw propeller as compared with the paddle.

With both ships joined stern-to-stern by a hawser and steaming against each other, Niger succeeded in towing Basilisk astern, demonstrating, as in previous tests between two other vessels, the undoubted superiority of the screw over the paddle for ship propulsion.

With the replacement of HMS Pelorus in 1862 by the screw corvette Orpheus (Commodore WY. Burnett), the citizens of Sydney turned out in great numbers to greet the fine new flagship. Carrying an armament of twenty 8-inch muzzle-loaders, with one 110-pound and four 40-pound rifled breech-loading guns, and with a speed of 111/2 knots, Orpheus was then the most modern and best equipped warship ever to have entered Port Jackson.

Orpheus spent the first few months of her commission on routine cruising and ‘showing the flag’ around various Australian and Pacific Island ports. But disaster was soon to strike.

On 1 February 1863 she sailed from Port Jackson bound for New Zealand, where Commodore Burnett was to make an inspection of the docking facilities available to vessels serving in those waters. After crossing the Tasman, Orpheus made her first landfall off Manukau Heads, on the northwest coast of the North Island. Outside the harbour entrance from 4.8 km (3 miles) from the heads, there is a bar. Between this and the heads are large shifting sand-spits, and upon these, huge rollers hurl themselves when the wind blows from seaward.

On Saturday 7 February, Orpheus approached the coast. The weather was clear, with a fresh southwester blowing. In the early afternoon, having received the signal from the semaphore station to ‘take the bar’, she passed safely over and steered towards the heads. She was under plain sail but with steam raised and engines at the ready for entering Manukau Harbour.

Orpheus was using an Admiralty chart based on surveys made some ten years before, but in the meantime the channel to the Manukau had shifted in a northerly direction. This change had been indicated by the Admiralty in its customary Notice to Mariners, but accounts differ as to whether the ship had received the notice, and if so whether her navigating officer had acted upon it, or whether in fact there had been a further shift in the channel. Suddenly, at 1330 Orpheus grounded on a spit and stuck fast. The engines were thrown into reverse, but could not be operated, having been dislocated by the impact of grounding. As she broached under the pounding of the heavy rollers, hatch covers were torn away and the ship began to fill with water. Rising seas whipped up by a strengthening wind, smashed the bulwarks and shattered some boats slung in their davits. Several of the heavier guns were thrown overboard in attempts to lighten the vessel and endeavours were made to launch the undamaged boats. One launch carrying 40 men was swamped, but two cutters managed to get clear of the ship and reached the heads in the late afternoon. A small steamer named Wonga Wonga took off the survivors and towed the cutters back to the scene of the wreck.

The screw sloop Harrier lying in the harbour was alerted and set out to render assistance, but she herself ran aground and did not reach the disaster scene. She was not seriously damaged and was later refloated.

In the meantime Orpheus had settled deeper into the water and as huge waves swept over the hull all surviving hands took to the rigging. The little Wonga Wonga with the two cutters in tow, stood off the bow of the doomed vessel and managed to manoeuvre the boats into a position where they could be reached by anyone able to jump overboard and swim. A considerable number of lives were saved in this manner.

That evening the masts of Orpheus, their shrouds and stays breaking, went overboard one by one, casting those who clung to the rigging into the sea. Some, clinging to pieces of wreckage, were picked up in the final stages of exhaustion. At day break next morning, although the seas had subsided, little could be seen of Orpheus except the stump of one mast and a few bare ribs.

And so, within the space of a few hours, the stately flagship of the Australia Station had been reduced to matchwood by the fury of the sea. Commodore Burnett, together with 188 of his officers and men were lost. With only 70 survivors, this was the greatest disaster to befall any of the ships of the Australia Station.

Following the loss of Orpheus, the Admiralty replaced her with HMS Curacoa which arrived on the station in April 1863. Up to that period and for some considerable time afterwards, all the larger screw-driven warships on the Australia Station were classified as corvettes, and to Curacoa went the distinction of being the first and only screw frigate to serve on the station. Though smaller than Orpheus, she was well armed, carrying sixteen 8-inch muzzle-loaders on the main deck, one 100-pound under the fo’c’sle and six 32-pound guns in the waist.

During the New Zealand campaign Curacoa was involved in operations against the Maoris in the Waikato River area when, in October 1863, 230 of her men were landed as reinforcements for General Cameron’s troops.

In 1864 when the red, white and blue squadronal colours were abolished in the Royal Navy, Commodore Wiseman was obliged to haul down his blue pennant and hoist in its place the white pennant with a red St. George’s Cross. This has remained the distinguishing pennant for a commodore up to the present time.

During the years following the establishment of the Australia Station as a separate command, its ships were replaced from time to time by more modern and more powerful vessels. However, even after sail in warships had long become outmoded, the squadron in Australian waters remained a very mixed collection of sail - steam types, and up to the later 1880s all the steam-driven fighting ships on the station were equipped with sail. These included the armoured cruiser Nelson which commenced service as flagship in 1882. Iron hulled and the first twin-screw vessel to serve on the station, Nelson displaced 7475 tons, and mounted four 10-inch 18-ton and eight 9-inch rifled muzzle-loaders, together with many lighter weapons. She had a side-armour belt up to 9 inches thick, could steam at 14 knots and was heavily rigged for sail.

In 1884 the British Admiralty decided to appoint a rear-admiral to command the Australia Station and Rear-Admiral George Tryon CB RN having being selected for the post, hoisted his flag in HMS Nelson on 22 January 1885. Nelson cruised extensively around the principal ports of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands and proved to be a popular and ideal flagship for such work. She concluded her service on the station in September 1888 when she sailed for home.

A few years afterwards Tyron was to figure in one of the greatest peacetime disasters ever to befall the Royal Navy. Off the coast of Syria on 22 June 1893, as Vice-Admiral and Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, he was directing evolutions from his flag ship HMS Victoria, which was leading a column of battleships steaming parallel with another column led by HMS Camperdown. Tryon ordered both columns to reverse course simultaneously by making a 1800 turn inwards. The columns were too close to complete the manoeuvre safely, but in spite of urgent warnings by his officers the Vice-Admiral refused to countermand his order, resulting in the flagship being rammed and sunk by HMS Camperdown. Tryon, along with 22 of his officers and 336 sailors went down with the ship.

A notable arrival on the Australia Station was the new armoured cruiser Orlando, which reached Sydney in August 1888 to replace Nelson. Orlando was the first flagship of the Australian Squadron to be built entirely of steel and the first in which sail power had been entirely dispensed with. On a displacement of 5600 tons, she carried two 9.2-inch and ten 6-inch rifled breech-loading guns, besides lighter armament and six 14-inch torpedo tubes. A twin-screw vessel, she could steam at 18 knots and carried a complement of 340. Orlando proved a most popular flagship and served on the station for nine years.

Included in the ships on the Australia Station in the later 1880s was one bearing a name famous in the annals of British naval history - HMS Calliope. One of the finest warships of the Victorian era, she was a screw corvette built of iron and steel. She displaced 2770 tons, was armed with four 6-inch and twelve 5-inch rifled breech-loaders, plus lighter guns and two torpedo-launching carriages. Her speed under steam was 13½ knots. She was barque rigged for sail and her feathering screw could revolve freely if required, to reduce drag while under canvas.

In mid-March 1889 Calliope (Captain Henry Kane RN), lay at anchor in the reef-bound harbour of Apia, Samoa, having been dispatched there to protect British nationals and trading interests at a troubled period when rival native chiefs were battling for supremacy. Other nations involved had also sent warships ,and these included the American vessels Nipsic, Trenton and Vandalia, and the German ships Adler, Eber and Olga, and several merchantmen added to the congestion of this small anchorage.

On 15 March the weather began to deteriorate, and all ships, in acordance with usual practice, struck topmasts and lower yards and raised steam in readiness for any emergency. By daybreak the next morning a hurricane had developed. All ships began to drag their anchors, and the German Eber was overwhelmed by hugh seas and foundered with heavy loss of life. The other two German vessels collided and Adler stranded on a reef. USS Nipsic following a collision with Olga ran onto a beach. Calliope, anchored and steaming against the wind, was almost hemmed in by the other vessels. Ten men manned her wheels and tackles were rigged to assist the rudder. Two of her three cables parted, leaving only the starboard bower anchor holding. USS Vandalia, dragging past, grazed Calliope’s jib boom, then the German Olga fouled the spars on her starboard side.

Early in the forenoon Captain Kane decided to attempt to steam for the open sea. With all boilers at full pressure, the bower cable was slipped, and Calliope inched forward at about half a knot. Narrowly avoiding the reef, and barely scraping past Trenton which was out of control and almost blocking the harbour entrance, Calliope at last edged her way into open water. In the meantime Olga, Trenton and Vandalia had all been driven ashore.

The wind gradually abated, but by noon next day it was still at gale force. It was not until two days later that Kane considered it safe to return to Apia. The port had been devastated, and of all vessels originally at anchor in the harbour only Calliope and a small schooner remained afloat. Calliope had sustained some superficial damage but her only human casualty was the carpenter’s mate, who was injured but later recovered. After rendering assistance Calliope sailed for Sydney, where on arrival she received a tumultuous welcome. Her epic escape from Apia still remains a legend in the history of the Royal Navy. Following repairs and refit, Calliope rejoined the squadron, and served for a further six months before sailing for England.

In the later 1880s, growing concern was being expressed by the Australian colonists, not only at the inadequacy of the naval forces provided for their protection, but also by the possibility that some or all of the ships on the station could be deployed to deal with emergencies elsewhere, leaving Australian cities open to attack by sea.

The outcome of this matter was the passing in December 1887 of the Australasian Naval Defence Act under which, in return for an annual contribution by the colonies, including New Zealand, Britain undertook to provide a force of modern vessels in addition to those regularly maintained on the station. The Auxiliary Squadron, as it was called, was to be based normally on Sydney and retained within the limits of the Australia Station, unless authorised by the Colonial governments to be deployed elsewhere.

The new squadron, consisting of five 3rd-class protected cruisers and two torpedo-gunboats, arrived in September 1891, and the ships were given an enthusiastic welcome. The cruisers were named Katoomba, Mildura, Ringarooma, Tauranga and Wallaroo. Smart looking little ships, they displaced 2575 tons and were armed with eight 4.7-inch and eight 3-pound guns, together with machine-guns and four 14-inch torpedo tubes. They were twin-screw vessels with a speed of 19 knots and carried a complement of 217. The torpedo-gunboats were of a type introduced by Britain in the mid-1880s as a counter to large numbers of torpedo-boats then being built by foreign powers. The two TGB as allocated to the Auxiliary Squadron were named Boomerang and Karrakatta. Of 735 tons, armed with two 4.7 inch guns, four 3-pounders and five 14-inch torpedo tubes, they were twin-screw vessels with a speed of 191/2 knots and each carried a complement of 91.

Some critics considered the ships of the Auxiliary Squadron unsuitable for service on the Australia Station, in view of the large expanses of open sea and heavy weather often encountered around the coasts of Australia and New Zealand. Nevertheless, the little vessels served on the station until well after the turn of the century.

In the meantime the regular squadron had grown in strength of numbers and capability, and by the time the last ships of the Auxiliary Squadron had departed for home, the station had been built up into a well balanced force of then modern cruisers. It was the era of the big four-funnellers and typical of these was the armoured cruiser Euryalus which commenced service as flagship on the Australia Station in July 1904. When the Commander-in-Chief, Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Fanshawe, was promoted to Admiral in 1905, Euryalus had the distinction of hoisting, for the first time on the station, the flag of a full Admiral. Nevertheless, the station remained, basically, a Vice-Admiral’s command.

Next of the large four-funnelled vessels to arrive was the first class protected cruiser Powerful, which relieved Euryalus and took up duties as flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Wilmot Fawkes in December 1905. Powerful was one of two sister ships which were the largest protected cruisers ever built for the British Navy, displacing 14,200 tons and armed with two 9.2-inch, sixteen 6-inch and many smaller guns. An internal 4-inch horizontal protective deck extended over her whole length, but the vast, unprotected sides were extremely vulnerable, and much of the 6-inch armament, carried in the side casemates, proved unworkable in moderately heavy seas.

The other ships on the station during Powerful’s term as flagship were the second class protected cruisers Cambrian, Challenger and Encounter, and the third class vessels Pegasus, Pioneer, Prometheus, Psyche and Pyramus, together with a number of screw sloops, some of which were employed on surveying duties.

Powerful sailed for home in December 1911, and her place was taken by HMS Drake. The armoured cruiser Drake, a massive four-funneller, was the most powerful vessel, engine-wise, and the fastest ever to serve on the Australia Station. She had a 6-inch thick belt of armour plating along her sides, and her armament of two 9.2-inch, sixteen 6-inch plus lighter guns was on a similar scale to her two immediate predecessors.

Her service on the Australia Station was brief, as the RAN was soon to take over from the Imperial Squadron. The Admiral, transferred his flag from Drake to the second-class protected cruiser Cambrian and Drake departed for England on New Year’s Day 1913. So it was that HMS Cambrian became the last flagship of the Royal Navy’s Australia Station. To her fell the duty of handing over control to the RAN as, moored in Farm Cove, dressed overall and wearing the flag of Admiral Sir George King-Hall, she saluted the new flagship HMAS Australia and her consorts as they arrived in Sydney Harbour on 4 October 1913.

One vessel of the new Australian fleet was HMAS Encounter, which had served as a unit of the RN on the Australia Station from 1906 to 1912 when she was presented to the Royal Australian Navy. Of the few British vessels remaining on the station when the Australian fleet arrived, the cruisers Pioneer and Psyche, the sloop Fantome and the depot ship ex-sloop Penguin were also presented to the RAN.

So ended the British Squadron’s presence on the Australia Station. Australia depended for its safety and security, from its early years of settlement to its ultimate rise to nationhood, on the ships and the men of the Royal Navy.