[3] Beginning his naval career at the age of 13 as a cadet on the Royal Navy's training ship Britannia, Creswell was promoted to midshipman in 1867 and on 20 October 1871 became a sub-lieutenant.

In 1873 while serving with sub-lieutenant Abraham Lindesay on the gunboat HMS Midge he was shot in the hip during a skirmish with pirates from the Laroot River, Penang Malaya but remained at his post.

Creswell's next seagoing appointment, to the East India Station, was followed by a period in Zanzibar, where he commanded a flotilla involved in suppressing the slave trade.

Creswell soon began agitating for the establishment of an Australian naval force to supplement the Royal Navy squadron based in Sydney.

In company with Colonel Justin F. G. Foxton, Creswell attended the Imperial Conference, which resulted in the Naval Defence Act of 1910 being passed which created the Australian navy.

[7] The fact that Australia's navy was ready for service when the First World War began was largely the result of Creswell's hard work and lobbying.

Considered the father of the RAN, Creswell retired in 1919 and took up farming in Victoria; in the same year he was awarded a second knighthood as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE).

Captain Randolph William Creswell (1890–1917) served in the 3rd Anzac Camel Battalion, AIF and was killed in action on 6 November 1917 at Tel el Khuweifle, Palestine.