HMAS MELBOURNE

Date1928

Object number00036213

NameCap tally

MediumCloth

DimensionsOverall: 24 x 800 mm

ClassificationsClothing and personal items

Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from John B Kiley

Terms

DescriptionCap tally of John Berchmans Kiley. Tallies are attached around a sailor's cap and identify the ship in which they serve. Kiley served on HMAS MELBOURNE in 1928 on its last cruise to the United Kingdom to be decommissioned and broken up.HistoryJohn Berchmans Kiley was born on 29 January 1910 and joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1925. He began his naval service on HMAS TINGIRA, a ship for boy sailors moored at Rose Bay in Sydney, where he trained for 15 months. He served on HMAS SYDNEY for around 12 months before joining HMAS HMAS MELBOURNE on its last voyage to England in 1928, returning home on the new HMAS AUSTRALIA in the same year. John undertook four years of training at HMAS CERBERUS studying a range of gunnery courses. Kiley reached the rank of Leading Seaman, and to his great disappointment was invalidated out of the navy around 1930 due to respiratory illness. HMAS MELBOURNE (I) was a Town class light cruiser built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead in England in 1911 and launched on 30 May 1912. MELBOURNE was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy on 18 January 1913. The cruiser was involved in the pursuit of the German raider SMS EMDEN in 1914, and served on the North America and West Indies Stations from 1914 to 1916 before joining the Grand Fleet in the North Sea, where it was stationed for the remainder of the war. MELBOURNE was paid off to reserve and laid up inactive at Sydney between 5 August 1919 and 14 April 1920 and again from 29 September 1924 to 8 October 1925. It sailed from Sydney for England on 9 February 1928, arriving at Portsmouth on 12 April 1928. MELBOURNE was finally paid off on 23 April 1928, sold to the Alloa Shipbuilding Company of Rosyth in Scotland in December 1928 and broken up in 1929.SignificanceThis cap tally is part of a collection of personal effects belonging to John Berchmans Kiley. It is an important historical record of the daily life of a boy sailor in the Royal Australian Navy in the early 20th century.