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To Vox Adelaide
Published in Adelaide Advertiser 1958
April 2d 1958

Lieut.-Commander J.H. Gill, R.A.N. (Retd.), of Cronulla, N.S.W.,
was born at Port Adelaide on 29th October, 1879, son of J.H. Gill, master
mariner and fisherman. He was educated at Stansbury Public School on Yorke's
Peninsula (S.A.), and at the age of 14 joined his father's fishing cutter
(sail only) as one of the crew of three. In July, 1898, while still
serving in the fishing fleet, he joined the South Australian Naval Reserve
as an ordinary seaman. "We were called up for training for one month
annually, two weeks of which were spent at sea in the South Australian reserve
ship "Protector" (armament, one 8 - inch gun and five 6 - inch guns)," I
think this little ship (920 tons) was one of the wettest ships of my time.
At sea her decks were awash in moderate weather."

In 1900, when the Boxer rebellion broke out in China, the South
Australian Government lent the "Protector" to the Admiralty. She sailed for
China with 96 officers and men in August of that year, under the command of
Captain W.R. Creswell (later Vice-Admiral Sir William Creswell, First Naval
Member of the Australian Naval Board). Now an able seaman, I was a member
of the crew. The "Protector" was employed almost entirely in the Gulf of
Pechili, carrying despatches and doing survey work. On 24th November, 1900,
she left Hong Kong for home; Creswell disembarked at Brisbane, to resume duty
as naval commandant in Queensland, and Captain Clare brought her back to
Adelaide, where the crew was paid off on 15th January, 1901.

I returned to the fishing fleet, relieving my father as master of the
cutter "Dalrymple". I still did monthly drill with the naval reserve.
Captain Clare was then harbour master of Port Adelaide and master of the
lighthouse store-ship "Governor Musgrave"; at the end of each drill period
he would select from the naval reservists the seamen for her next cruise to
all the South Australian lighthouses.

The naval forces in the several states, and all persons whose
employment was connected therewith, were transferred to the Commonwealth
on 1st March, 1901, but until 28th February, 1904, were administered under
the State Acts and regulations. On 1st March, 1904, theCommonwealth Defence
Act of 1903 came into force. The ships taken over from the States, including
the "Protector," were in poor condition and had not even nucleus crews - the
natural result of ten years' unsystemised economies.

At Port Adelaide, in July, 1904, H.M.S. "Katoomba,"
a second-class British cruiser on the Australian station, was signing on
Australian seamen and stokers under the terms of the Australian Naval Agreement
Act 1903. I having now decided to join the navy full-time, went aboard the "Katoomba"
on July 19th, accompanied by Captain Clare, and signed on as an ordinary
seaman of the Royal Navy, my number being A.N.F.257. Within a month I was
an able seaman, and in October, 1905, transferred to H.M.S. "Challenger."

[handwritten note adjacent to Para 2]
(2 survivors only 1860
myself and Jock Gillis
of Adelaide)

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