HMAS Australia’s officers
Commodore John Saumarez Dumaresq was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1920 and became the first Australian-born officer to hold the rank of Rear Admiral in June 1921.
Stringent post-War budget cuts brought Dumaresq into conflict with the Australian Government again as he sought to protect the long-term interests of the Royal Australian Navy.
His service with the RAN eventually came to an on 29 April 1922 when he reverted to service with the Royal Navy. Dumaresq strongly criticized attitudes towards defence spending in his farewell speech on the deck of the battlecruiser in Sydney Harbour.
He subsequently left for England on the Japanese liner Tango Maru but on nearing the Philippines fell ill with pneumonia and died at the American Military Hospital in Manila on 22 July 1922.
He was buried at San Pedro Macati cemetery in Manila with full military honours. His burial ceremony was attended by 1,200 US troops.
Captain Claude Cumberlege transferred to HMAS Melbourne in September 1920 when HMAS Australia was taken out of active service.
Cumberlege left the RAN 11 days after Commodore Dumaresq on 9 May 1922 when he also reverted to Royal Navy service. He was also promoted to Rear Admiral on the retired list in 1926.
He acquired a former Ostende Pilot Boat he renamed L’Insoumise (The Rebel) and lived on it in the Bay of Biscay and Mediterranean. In 1931 he swapped the pilot boat for a smaller scooner, Westward that he renamed Fluer de Lys.
The Cumberlege family lived in Spain in the early 1930s but were forced to seek refuge at Gibraltar during the Spanish Civil War. He published his reminiscences, Master Mariner, in 1936.
The family returned to England at the outbreak of the Second World War. Cumberlege volunteered for service again but was rejected. He subsequently served in the Home Guard.
After the Second World War, Cumberlege went back to Europe and acquired a villa on the French Riviera where he lived a prominent social life with British expats and Hollywood stars until he died on 22 November 1962.
The Court Martial Panel
Commodore John Collins Glossop left the RAN and reverted to the Royal Navy in October 1920. After a short period as a Coast Guard Captain at Queenstown in Ireland he was promoted to Rear Admiral on 20 November 1921 and retired the next day.
Glossop became a Vice Admiral on the retired list in 1926. However, he lived a quiet life near Bridport in Dorset where he pursued his hobby of fly-fishing. He was also active in the Anglican Church, the local hospital and the British Legion.
He died of septicaemia on 23 December 1934. He is commemorated on tablets in the naval chapel at Garden Island in Sydney and his portrait hangs in the Australian War Memorial.
The Australian Commonwealth Naval Board
Rear Admiral Edward P F G Grant retained his role as Chief of Naval Staff and attended the Empire Conference in London as an adviser to Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, in 1921.
He left the RAN and reverted to the Royal Navy in 1922 when he was appointed as Admiral Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyards until he retired in 1928. He was recalled in the Second World War as Captain of the Port of Holyhead.
He died on 8 September 1952.
George Lionel Macandie stayed as secretary of the Department of the Navy but was sent to the British Admiralty in June 1920 to gain additional experience (following criticism of naval administration in the 1918 Royal Commission on Defence Administration).
Macandie was appointed Commander of the British Empire in October 1920 but lost his role as secretary when the Department of the Navy was merged with the Department of Defence in 1922.
He shepherded the Royal Australian Navy through the post-war budget cuts in the 1920s and 1930s and played a key role in the acquisition of HMAS Australia II and HMAS Canberra in 1928-29. He was an unseen architect of the RAN expansion in the 1930s that included the acquisition of HMAS Sydney, Perth and Hobart.
When the Second World War commenced in 1939, the Department of the Navy was established as a separate entity again but Macandie was 64 and the Government wanted a younger man as secretary. As a result, Alfred Nankervis was appointed secretary of the Department of the Navy and Macandie became secretary of the ACNB.
Macandie played a key role in managing the military, legal and diplomatic fallout from the murder of Jack Riley on HMAS Australia II I 1942. He retired in 1946 and published The Genesis of the Royal Australian Navy in 1950. He died on 30 April 1968.
Lawyers
Richard ‘Dick’ Beaumont Orchard, MP retired from politics at the December 1919 Federal election. He was recognized for his contribution during the First World War when awarded a Commander of the British Empire in 1920.
Orchard ran unsuccessfully as a Nationalist candidate for the seat of East Sydney in the 1925 election and the Senate in the 1928 election. He became a Commissioner of the Australian Broadcasting Authority between 1932-1939.
He died at Darling Point in Sydney in 1942.
Captain Sir Philip Weyland Bowyer-Smyth served as the Naval Attached in Rome in 1938-39 and commanded HMAS Perth in 1940-41. He was appointed Director of radio equipment for the Admiralty in 1943-44 and Commodore of East Africa between 1945-46. He became Aide-de-Camp t King George VI in 1946.
He died in 1978.
Politicians
William ‘Billy’ Morris Hughes, MP won the 1919 Federal election but lost a majority in the 1922 election. Hughes was forced to resign as Prime Minister to retain Country Party support and he was succeeded by Stanley Bruce.
Billy Hughes remained active on the backbench and a dispute over industrial relations saw hi and his supporters cross the floor of Parliament to bring down Stanley Bruce in 1928.
Hughes went into Opposition as an independent and subsequently formed his own party that became the United Australian Party in 1931. He returned to cabinet in 1934. He lost a leadership ballot to Robert Menzies in 1939.
As Attorney General he played a key role in opposing the adoption of the Statute of Westminster the 1930s. He continued to oppose adoption of the Statute while on the Opposition benches during the Second World War.
He was re-elected for the last time at the 1951 Federal election. He died on 28 October 1952.
Sir Joseph Cook, MP became Treasurer in 1920-21 before he became High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in 1921-27. He played a key role in organizing the Australian pavilion at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. Cook represented Australia at the Genoa Conference in 1922 and was Australia’s Chief Delegate at the League of Nations.
He returned to Sydney in 1927 and was appointed as a Royal Commissioner into the finances of South Australia. The 1929 report found the State had been disadvantaged by Federal financial policies. The report led to the formation of the Commonwealth Grants Commission.
Cook led a low profile retirement and refused to rite his memoirs. Cook died at Bellevue Hill in Sydney on 30 July 1947. Billy Hughes was a pallbearer at Cook’s funeral.
William ‘Bill’ Watt, MP was appointed to the Privy Council in London in 1920 as a reward for being acting prime Minister while Billy Hughes was at the Versailles Peace Conference.
Watt was subsequently appointed as Australia’s representative to the Spa Conference on War Reparations but fell out with Hughes over negotiations and retuned to Australia to serve on the backbench.
He was appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives by Stanley Bruce but was unhappy about the shift of the Federal Government from Melbourne to Canberra in 1927. He was returned at the 1928 election but resigned on medical advice nine months later.
Watt suffered a stroke in 1937 and died at his home in Toorak in Melbourne shortly afterwards.
Alexander ‘Alec’ Poynton, MP became Minister in Charge of Shipping and Assistant Minister for Repatriation after the return of Sir Joseph Cook from the Paris Peace Conference in Versailles.
Poynton became an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) and Minister for Home Territories, in 1920 and was then appointed Post Master General in 1921-23. He was defeated at the 1922 Federal election.
He died in Adelaide on 9 January 1935.
Francis ‘Frank’ Gwynne Tudor, MP remained leader of the Labor Party and Opposition Leader despite the heavy defeat at the 1919 Federal election. Tudor’s health deteriorated in 1921 and he as unable to continue carrying out his duties.
In September 1921, the Labor Party elected Matthew Charlton as assistant leader to support Tudor.
Tudor became the first Labor leader to die in office on 10 January 1922.
Senator Albert ‘Jupp’ Gardiner was the sole Labor Senator to survive the 1919 election defeat and retained his Senate seat until 1926. He filled a casual vacancy in 1928 but was ejected from the State Party by Lange Labor in NSW.
Gardiner unsuccessfully contested Dalley, in 1928, Waverley in 1932 and Canterbury in 1935 for the Federal Labor Party without support from Lange Labor in NSW. He retired from politics and resumed his trade as a builder until he died at home in Bondi in Sydney on 14 August 1952.
Michael Connington, MLC served as a Labor member of the NSW Legislative Council until 1930. He was also a member of the Commonwealth Shipbuilding Tribunal from 1918-23. He died in Putney in 1930.
British Politicians
Sir Roland Crauford Munro Ferguson advised Whitehall of his desire to return to London in May 1919 but he was asked to stay until after the Royal Tour of Australia by the Prince of Wales.
On his return to the UK in 1920, Sir Roland was raised to a peerage as Viscount Novar of Raith in the County of Fife and Novar in the County of Ross. He was subsequently made Secretary of State for Scotland in 1923.
Viscount Novar was appointed Chairman of the Political Honours Committee and made a Knight of the Thistle in 1926. Lord Novar died at home on 30 March 1934.
Viscount Alfred Milner resigned as Secretary of State for the Colonies after his proposal to give Egypt a form of independence was rejected. He was made a Knight of the Garter on 16 February 1921. Milner published Questions of the Hour in 1923. He died on 13 May 1925.
Walter Long retired as First Lord of the Admiralty when he accepted the title of Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire in 1920. He was raised to the peerage as Viscount Long of Wraxall in the County of Wiltshore in May 1921. He died at his home in Wiltshire in September 1924.