This book breaks new ground in reviewing the naval and military law of the Australian colonies before their federation in 1901. Its particular focus is on the disciplinary codes contained in Acts of Parliament and subordinate legislation. A disciplinary code takes a certain form having regard to the nature of the force to which it is to apply, which in turn depends on the circumstances in which the force is raised and its proposed role.

Matters dealt with include:

• An examination of the colonies' many disciplinary codes and a discussion of their adequacy.
• The political development of the colonies to the stage where they were prepared to raise local forces.
• The development of the British part-time forces and the British naval and military disciplinary codes, because the colonies looked to Britain for precedents for the kinds of forces they might raise and the disciplinary codes they might provide.
• The various kinds of naval and military forces that the colonies experimented with.
• The colonies' responses to the withdrawal of British regular army troops in the period 1860-70.
• The colonies' responses to the reports of senior British officers sent to the colonies to advise on defence matters, including the colonial forces.
• The naval and military law applying to colonial forces serving in the Sudan, the Boer War and the Boxer rebellion in China.

Military Law in Colonial Australia is erudite, beautifully written and advances important new scholarship. The author, Neil Preston OAM, has provided an invaluable service to all those interested in both military history and Australian legal history.

Neil Preston attended the Melbourne Boys High School but left at 15 in 1939 to work as a telegraph messenger in the Postmaster-General's Department. He was transferred to the Department of the Navy in 1940 and remained in the Navy and Defence administrations until his retirement in 1988. He displayed a talent for logical analysis and, in spite of his lack of legal qualifications, became the Navy administration's specialist in the development of legislation. He played an important role in the development of a uniform disciplinary code for the Defence Force that in 1985 replaced the obsolete English legislation that applied to the Defence Force. In recognition of his work in this field, Neil was awarded the Commendation of the Chief of the Defence Force in 1985, and the OAM in 1989.