Australian Naval Force (ANF) Engagement and Service Records now online

The Research Centre has now digitised and made available online the series AWM266 Australian Naval Force (ANF) Engagement and Service Records, 1903-1911.

The records in this series relate to men and boys – mainly residents of Australia and New Zealand – who served in the Australian Squadron of the Royal Navy under the terms of the Naval Agreement Act of 1903. Similar to attestation papers of soldiers in the First World War, they contain information on each individual engaged in the ANF between 1903 and 1911.

You can browse these files here, or you can search the Memorial’s collections to determine if an individual has an entry in the series.

Above is the first page of the Form of Engagement for Niels Peter Henry Nielsen, containing information such as his date and place of birth, a personal description, including trade or occupation, and the fact that he had no distinguishing wounds, scars or marks. Additionally, at the bottom of the page, are his answers to questions regarding details like citizenship and previous service (and - apparently as an afterthough, but perhaps most importantly - whether or not he was able to swim).

For those individuals engaged as boys (those younger than 18 years of age), these engagement forms are accompanied by letters from parents or guardians giving permission for them to join the ANF, and occasionally copies of birth certificates to prove their age.

Niels Nielsen would later go on to serve in the Royal Australian Navy in the First World War, and was serving on HMAS Sydney during her encounter with the German raider SMS Emden on 9 November 1914 (you can read his account of that action in his digitised Private Records here).

AWM266 dates from the period between Federation in 1901 and the formation of the RAN in 1911. During this period, responsibility for the protection of Australian waters was still primarily under the control of the Royal Navy’s Australian Squadron, assigned to the Australia Station.

At the time, the Royal Navy’s activities in Australia were partly funded by the newly formed Commonwealth government, although it had no suitable ships of its own.  The arrival in Sydney in October 1913 of seven new ships, which were to form the fleet of the RAN, brought the Royal Navy’s responsibility for the Australia Station to an end.

The Imperial ships remaining in Australasian waters, and administration for the Royal Navy’s activities in the Pacific region, were transferred to New Zealand. It is likely that these service records were also transported to New Zealand before being sent back to England, where they were kept by the Ministry of Defence. The records were then handed to the Australian High Commission in London in September 1994, forwarded to Australia, and donated to the Australian War Memorial by the RAN in December of the same year.