Most of these communications are from the Officer-in-Command of the Australian Station, which included the Indian Ocean from Sumatra, took in New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand, and extended into the Pacific from the Marshall Islands and the Marquesas to a point beyond Easter Island, and as far south as the Antarctic Circle. The Officer-in-Command was the channel for correspondence from the Admiralty, and these letters concern naval cadetships (the nomination of which was in the Governor's patronage), armament, naval defences, deserters, training cruises and ceremonial visits, hydrographic surveys, the annexation of New Guinea and the affairs of the Pacific Islands. Control of the Australian Station, whose boundaries had been slightly modified, passed to the Commonwealth Government in October, 1913. The papers that follow this date are few, and for the most part from other sources; they include some despatches from the Governor-General relating to naval matters. For the period 1882-1907 this correspondence is registered in GO51, and some of the corresponding outward letters will be found in GO56/3; some of these latter are registered in GO57 (1878-1902).

These records are part of the holdings of the Tasmanian Archives