CHAU3155 This is a rare opportunity to secure this antique 1912 hand signed letter from Robert Muirhead Collins CMG (18521927) who was an English-born Royal Navy officer, Colonial (Permanent Victorian Naval Forces) naval officer, Colonial public servant, Australian Federationist, Australian public service department head and Australia's official representative in London.  The letter is sent direct from the Commonwealth Offices in London in 1912 on official headed paper discussing a sports publication which Robert Muirhead Collins believes it the first time a book of this kind published in England (please enlarge and read) -  Bar just folded twice where posted it is in pristine condition. .

Sir Robert Henry Muirhead Collins (1852-1927), naval officer and public servant, was born on 20 September 1852 at Chew Magna, Somerset, England, son of Charles Howell Collins, surgeon, and his wife Henrietta Jane Heaven, ne Grosett. Educated at Taunton and as a cadet in H.M.S. Britannia, he entered the navy in 1866, served in flying squadrons in 1868 and 1872 and on the Channel and Australian stations to 1876. That year he was promoted lieutenant. Retiring from the navy in 1877, Collins was appointed lieutenant in the Permanent Victorian Naval Forces. In 1883 he was sent to England to assist in bringing to Victoria two gunboats and a torpedo boat. After courses of instruction in gunnery and torpedo practice on the Excellence and Vernon he returned in command of the gunboat Albert in June 1884, offering his vessel for service in the Sudan War at Suakim on the way; he was promoted commander in December. Becoming secretary for defence on 12 April 1888, he continued as commander on the unattached list until 1896 when he was retired with the rank of captain.On the foundation of the Commonwealth in 1901 Collins became secretary to the new Department of Defence. Under several ministers, he ably administered the department in a time of rapid growth but financial stringency: colonial forces were amalgamated and defence policy hammered out, particularly under the direction of Sir John Forrest. Melbourne Punch observed that 'Officers did not love him because he curbed expenditure, and steadfastly set his face against vain display Punch commented that 'His light, ladylike figure is no index to his character dressed with the daintiness of a dandy and the art of an artist .  In 1906 he was a member of the British royal commission on shipping rings and in 1913 as Commonwealth representative attended the international conference in London on safety of life at sea. On Reid's election to the House of Commons in 1916, Collins advocated abolition of the High Commission in favour of permanent Australian representation in the British cabinet. After his retirement in September 1917 he sat for a year on the committee for Australia of the Imperial Institute.