Framed Black and White Photograph of HMAS Encounter Officers, November 1918

The cruiser HMS Encounter (later to become HMAS Encounter) was laid down at Devonport Dockyard, United Kingdom on 28 January 1901. She was launched 17 months later on 18 June 1902. Encounter and her sister ship HMS Challenger, completed in 1904, were classified as Challenger Class light cruisers and were the only two of the class to be built.
Shortly after commissioning Encounter was ordered to sail for Australia to become part of the Royal Navy Squadron on the Australia Station. The cruiser departed Sheerness, Kent, on New Years Eve 1905 and set sail for Australia.
HMS Encounter’s role on the Australia Station was to conduct regular ‘showing the flag’ cruises to Australian and New Zealand ports and to the islands of New Guinea and the South West Pacific. She also became the training ship for Australian seaman who had joined the Royal Navy.
Encounter was commissioned into the RAN on 1 July 1912 under the command of Captain B M Chambers RN. Several Royal Navy officers and ratings stayed onboard Encounter, which then became the training cruiser for the fledgling RAN.
In 1914 Encounter was in Townsville on 30 July when a signal was received indicating that war with Germany was imminent and all Australian warships were ordered to return to their operational bases.
Encounter returned to Sydney and began to undertake repairs and maintenance in order to be ready for whatever eventuated. On 4 August 1914 war with Germany was declared. Encounter cut short her repairs and was ready for sea by the morning of 6 August.
Her wartime crew consisted of 475 personnel. She carried only 21 ‘permanent’ officers (not including officers under training) which consisted of the Captain, Executive Officer (often called the Commander), five seaman Lieutenants (including the Navigator and Gunnery Officer), Engineer Commander, Engineer Lieutenant, Engineer Sub Lieutenant, Chaplain, Surgeon, Staff Paymaster, Assistant Paymaster, Chief Artificer Engineer, three Gunners of whom one was a Torpedo Specialist, Carpenter and two Artificer Engineers.
Captain J B Stevenson RN was commanding Officer from 31 October 1916 to 22 November 1918
With the end of hostilities and the demobilization of many of the RAN men who were ‘time expired’, the crew of Encounter was reduced in size and some of her armament was removed. She became a sea going training ship. On 1 January 1923 the former cruiser Encounter was commissioned as HMAS Penguin. She became the floating home for Naval personnel working at Garden Island and for crews who ships were in refit.
She continued in this role until 15 August 1929 when she was decommissioned and eventually scuttled off Sydney Heads.
The photographer of this item was Allan Charles Green, was born in Daylesford, in the Central Victorian goldfields on Dec. 23, 1878. Green opened a photo studio on Williamstown’s Front Esplanade, which he lived above. While Green no doubt did commercial portrait photography, his own fascination and focus seems to have been was almost entirely maritime.