User:Navops47/draft/RN Stations

Australia Station

The Australia Station was the administrative term for the naval command based on Australian waters.

The Australia Station had been formed in 1821 as part of the larger East Indies Station but few warships of any substance spent much time in Australian waters. In the early years of the colony of New South Wales, ships based in these waters came under the control of the East Indies Station, but in 1859 the British Admiralty delineated a separate station, under the command of a commodore.. The decision was in part a recognition of the circumstances in which a good part of the East Indies Station had been detached for duty in Australian waters, and reflected concerns about the strategic situation in the western Pacific, especially over Tahiti, and the lead-up to the Maori Wars of the 1840s. There was also a need to police the trade in island labourers. In 1884 the station was upgraded to a rear-admiral's command. Modifications to the boundaries were made in 1864, 1872, 1893 and 1908, such that by the time responsibility for the station passed to the newly founded RAN in 1913 it covered the mainland of Australia and its island dependencies to the north and east, while touching no other shores. It was redrawn again in 1958, by which time it no longer included New Zealand but did include Papua New Guinea.