Historical information
Transported to Victoria as deck cargo aboard s.s. Port Darwin. This vessel was ordered by Government of Victoria and was only used in training exercises in Port Philip and had become outmoded by the time the Royal Australian Navy was formed in 1911.
Significance
Buried by sand in the grounds of the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum. There is no known record of how the "Lonsdale" ended abandoned on the beach at Queenscliff. Originally the land where the QMM is situated was the foreshore at the back of the houses in Beach Street, Queenscliff. There were two Torpedo boats built in 1884, the Lonsdale and the Nepean.
Physical description
Site of the buried remains of the Torpedo Boat HMAS Lonsdale [HMVS]
References
- HMVS Lonsdale 1882 - 1914 In 1983 members of the Maritime Archaeology Association of Victoria uncovered the remains of a second-class torpedo boat believed to be the Lonsdale at Queenscliff, Victoria. The Victorian Government purchased two second-class torpedo boats the Lonsdale and Nepean and one first-class torpedo boat the Childers from J.I. Thornycroft and Co. of Church Wharf, Chiswick, England, in 1882. These boats illustrate the development of torpedo warfare and fast fighting boats in Australia. during the nineteenth century.
