HMS Fantome was built for the Royal Navy Survey Service. It arrived in Australian waters in 1907 to continue the Barrier Reef survey begun by HMS Penguin in 1905.
From 1907 until the outbreak of World War I, Fantome was almost continuously engaged on survey operations in Australian waters. For some four years it was commanded by Commander FCC Pasco RN, a grandson of Crawford Pasco who served in HMS Beagle under John Lort Stokes, and who was a son of Lieutenant Pasco, Nelson’s signal officer in HMS Victory at Trafalgar.
The vessel was crewed by and commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy as HMAS Fantome on 27 November 1914, under the command of Lieutenant George PM Fitzgerald RN, and despatched to New Guinea in early December. Fantome returned to Sydney on 21 February 1915 to pay off.
In July 1915 Fantome was armed with two 4-inch and four 12-pounder guns, again crewed by the Royal Australian Navy and recommissioned on 27 July 1915, under the command of Commander Lewis T Jones RN, for service in the Persian Gulf. However, on arrival in Singapore on 4 September, the vessel was detached for Blockade Patrol service operating mainly in the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
In January 1916 patrols in the Bay of Bengal were discontinued and Fantome began patrols in the seas east of Singapore, based at Sandakan in Borneo. Except for a period refitting in Hong Kong, the sloop remained in constant service on Far East Patrol until the end of August 1917. She returned to Sydney in September 1917 after an absence of two years in tropical waters under extremely trying conditions of service.
In November 1917 Fantome was sent to the western Pacific and for the remainder of the war and until December 1918 assumed the police duties in the islands undertaken in pre war days by Royal Navy ships of the China or Pacific Stations. For most of the period the was based at Suva.
Fantome paid off at Sydney on 14 January 1919 for return to the Royal Navy. Refitted and with guns removed, Fantome recommissioned in the Royal Navy at Sydney in April 1920 for service as a survey ship. Fantome served in Australian waters until late 1923. On 9 January 1924 the sloop returned to Sydney to pay off after completing a survey of the western approaches to Endeavour Strait and the Prince of Wales Channel. On 17 April 1924 it paid off for disposal and was sold to William Waugh Ltd of Balmain, Sydney, for breaking up.
The name Fantome was first borne by a Royal Navy ship in 1809. The third ship of the name, a sloop smaller but similar to HMAS Penguin, served in the Pacific between 1874 and 1878. Fantome was of the same class as Sappho, Egeria and Flying Fish, all of which served on the Australia Station, the last two as survey ships.