Patey, Sir George Edwin, KCMG, KCVO (Rear Admiral, b.1859 - d.1935)

Collection relating to Rear Admiral Sir George Edwin Patey, KCMG, KCVO, First World War. Collection comprises letters written in German and English to the German Governor, New Britain. The letters demand the surrender of Rabaul and all dependencies under his control.

Although this material has been part of the Australian War Memorial collection since its inception, the actual provenance of this material is not able to be firmly established. It is most likely that the material came to the Memorial along with the bulk of First World War records from the Australian War Records Section. Most of the First World War records were collated and arranged in the 1920s and 1930s to facilitate the working requirements of the Official Historian of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), Dr C. E. W. Bean. According to a caption in the collection, the material was “withdrawn from the Classified Operations files or other records for exhibition purposes”. Research into AWM26 Operations files, 1914-18 War, indicates that the original location of the records was more likely to have been with the records that were later formed into AWM33 New Guinea campaign records, 1914-18 War.

Another possible provenance is hinted at on AWM93 12/11/1276 (a part file relating to other material from Patey's daughter, Mrs Hammett, Plymouth, England) where Arthur Bazley (Acting Director of the AWM) wrote to the Secretary, Department of the Navy,11 March 1944, in response to the National Librarian referring to a proffered donation of a letter of Admiral Patey. Bazley wrote to request that the Department of the Navy refer all prospective donations of material to the Australian War Memorial.