British Forces in Victoria 1836-1870

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BRITISH FORCES

IN VICTORIA

1803-1870

The first armed force stationed in Victoria was a detachment of Royal Marines.

They guarded the abortive first attempt to colonise the Port Phillip District by

convicts in 1803-4. The settlement was at today's Sorrento (now a bayside suburb

of Melbourne). The detachment consisted of William Sladen, 1st Lieutenant;

J. M. Johnson, 2nd Lieutenant; Edwin Lord, 3rd Lieutenant; three sergeants,

three corporals; one drummer; one fifer; and 39 Privates. Lieutenant Governor

David Collins was himself a Lieut.-Col in the Royal Marines. For a variety of

reasons, not least being lack of fresh water and constant skirmishing with

Aboriginal warriors, the settlement was abandoned in 1804.

In addition to the British Regiments, and detachments of British Regiments, that

served as garrisons in Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat, senior British Officers

with particular skills as defence experts helped plan the bayside and coastal defences

of Victoria.

Melbourne was in the 1860s the headquarters of the Australia and New Zealand

military command. For a year or two in the early 1860s, Melbourne was the

headquarters of the Royal Navy's Australia Station. A battery of Royal

Artillery was stationed in Melbourne between 1861-1866 (with some short

absences).

The British Regiments sent to Australia had a nominal strength of between 800-1000.

Detachments of each regiment were spread out among the Australian colonies. At

the Eureka Stockade in 1854, detachments of the 12th and 40th Regiments were part

of the Government force. Believing re-inforcements were necessary, Governor Sir

Charles Hotham requested that the detachment of the 99th Regiment, then in Hobart,

Tasmania, be sent to Victoria.

Below are the British Regiments that served in Australia after the permanent

European settlement of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales (now

Victoria) began. Detachments of most of these regiments served in Victoria.

Colonial governments were expected to pay half the cost of maintaining them:

4th (King's Own) Regiment 1832-1837
50th (Queen's Own West Kent) Regiment 1833-1841
28th (N. Gloucestershire) Regiment 1835-1842
80th (Staffordshire Volunteers) Regiment 1837-1844
51st (King's Own Yorkshire) Light Infantry 1838-1846
96th Regiment 1841-1848
99th (Lanarkshire Volunteers) Regiment 1842-1856
58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment 1844-1847
11th (N. Devonshire) Regiment 1845-1857
65th (2nd Yorks, N. Riding) Regiment 1846-1849
40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment 1852-1860 2nd tour
12th (E. Suffolk) Regiment 1854-1861*
77th (E. Middlesex) Regiment 1857-1858
50th (Queen's Own West Kent) Regiment 1866-1869 2nd tour
14th (2nd Battalion Bucks) Regiment 1867-1870
18th (2nd Battalion Royal Irish) Regiment 1870

____________

* Detachments of the 12th Regiment went to Taranaki, NZ in 1860.

[Sources: Montague, Ronald Dress & Insignia of the British Army in Australia & New Zealand 1770-1870,

Lib. of Aust. Hist, NSW, 1981 -- and I. MacFarlane research]

Many of the British Regiments were sent to Australia before undertaking a tour

of duty in India. As can be discerned from the list above, the Land Wars in New

Zealand (then known as the Maori Wars) in the mid-1840s and 1860s denuded the

SE Australian Colonies of British troops.

In late 1841, Ensign Samuel Rawson and 8 privates of the 28th Regiment were

part of a small party at Westernport, Victoria, including Aboriginal trackers,

which captured murder suspects Robert Timmy Jimmy Smallboy (`Bob') and Jack

Napoleon Tunninerpareway (`Jack'), two Aboriginal men from Van Diemen's Land

(Tasmania). Bob and Jack, after conviction at Melbourne, became the first people

to be publicly hanged in Victoria in January 1842.

The men of the 28th Regiment involved in the capture were robbed of the

opportunity to witness the execution. The Regiment was withdrawn from Australia

in December 1841. They were replaced by a detachment of the 80th Regiment under

Captain Charles Lewis. They, in turn, were replaced by a detachment of the

99th Regiment, which in 1846 created a stir when nine privates absconded.

They were never found.

It was suspected that they were aided by settlers desperate for labourers.

The book of Common Prayer presented to

Colour-Sergeant Thomas Farr of the 99th

Regiment. The prayer book and a handsome

bible were presented to him by the senior

students of St James's Grammar School in

Sydney in 1848 as 'a token of respect'. Farr

died in Tasmania in 1858.

Photo proudly provided by his descendants

in New Zealand, Trevor and Dyan Farr.

Private William Prayle's discharge certificate. Prayle served 16 years with the 40th Regiment. He enlisted with the regiment on 15 December 1840 at Chelmsford, and was discharged at Melbourne on 26 January

1857. He was of 'very good' character and possessed three good conduct badges. Certificate and glass

plate photograph (below) supplied for Defending Victoria by proud descendants Kathryn and Paul Lucas

of Queensland.

In 1859, nearly 170 acres of land was reserved for military purposes. On it was

built Victoria Barracks. `A' Block, built of bluestone, was ready for occupation

by 1861. The Barracks, which still stand in St Kilda Road opposite Government

House, Melbourne, was headquarters for the Australian Military Command

until the withdrawal of British forces in 1870.

Do you have an ancestor who served with the British Forces in Victoria? Do you have a

photograph?

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