page_title: History of the Royal Australian Navy
section_title: Colonial navies and federation
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Royal Australian Navy / Colonial navies and federation
caption_attribution_description: AWM Caption: 1889. GUNBOAT PALUMA SHOWING HER PORT SIDE WHILST OPERATING AS A SURVEY VESSEL.
context_page_description: The history of the Royal Australian Navy traces the development of the Royal Australian Navy from the colonisation of Australia by the British in 1788. Until 1859, vessels of the Royal Navy made frequent trips to the new colonies. In 1859, the Australia Squadron was formed as a separate squadron and remained in Australia until 1913. Until Federation, five of the six Australian colonies operated their own colonial naval force, which formed on 1 March 1901 the Australian Navy's Commonwealth Naval Force which received Royal patronage in July 1911 and was from that time referred to as Royal Australian Navy. On 4 October 1913 the new replacement fleet for the foundation fleet of 1901 steamed through Sydney Heads for the first time.
  The Royal Australian Navy has seen action in every ocean of the world. It first saw action in World War I, in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans. Between the wars the RAN's fortunes shifted with the financial situation of Australia: it experienced great growth during the 1920s, but was forced to reduce its fleet and operations during the 1930s. Consequently, when it entered World War II, the RAN was smaller than it had been at the start of World War I.
context_section_description: Before the Federation of Australia in 1901, five of the six self-governing colonies in Australia operated a navy, the exception being Western Australia which did not have a naval force. The colonial navies were supported by the ships of the Royal Navy's Australian Station which was established in 1859. 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 crew member. 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, Victoria had the most powerful of 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. 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.
  On 1 January 1901, Australia became a federation of six States, as the Commonwealth of Australia, which on 1 March 1901 took over the defence forces from the States, to form the Commonwealth Naval Forces. The Australian and New Zealand governments agreed with the Imperial government to help fund the Royal Navy's Australian Squadron, while the Admiralty committed itself to maintain the Squadron at a constant strength. In 1902, the commander of the Australia Station was upgraded to the rank of vice admiral. The boundaries were again modified in 1908.
caption: The gunboat HMQS Paluma in 1889
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