1871

January 5

The 1,621 ounce gold nugget ‘Precious’ found near Dunolly, Vic, by Chinese prospector Ah Chang.

January 19

Gov. of NSW and Tas, Sir William Thomas Denison, dies.

February 10

The railway between Deloraine and Launceston, Tas., opens.

March 11

The first railway in WA – between Lockville and Yogonup – opens.

March 15

Australia’s first synagogue opens in Adelaide.

March 30

The site for an Overland telegraph line station that would become the township of Alice Springs, is established. Named after Alice Dodd, wife of the SA Postmaster-General in charge of the building of the telegraph line.

March 30

Acclaimed Aboriginal cricketer Johnny Cuzens dies at Warrnambool after contracting dysentery. Uproar in the press when Melbourne Cricket Club refuses to pay for the funeral and he is denied a decent burial.

April 3

Sports promoter John Wren born.

April 14

After serving six months in Beechworth Gaol for assaulting a hawker, Ned Kelly appears in court soon after for stealing a horse. When it is shown Ned had been in gaol at the time the horse had disappeared, the charge is amended and he is instead convicted of ‘receiving a stolen horse’, for which he is given a three-year hard labour gaol sentence which he served in Pentridge Gaol. The borrower is his friend Isiah"Wild" Wright, who inexplicably receives a sentence of only 18 months.

April 29

Irish Catholic Larry Foley becomes colony’s boxing champion after knocking out Protestant rival Sandy Ross in the 16th round at Como in suburban Sydney, NSW.

May 5

Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital opens two years after Prince Alfred laid the foundation stone.

May 25

NSW Government allocates £20,000 to form two artillery and two infantry companies to protect the colony.

May 25

Australia’s first trade union council formed.

June 12

NSW Government allocates £30,000 for the fortification of Sydney Harbour.

June

Joseph Wills discovers tin at Elsmore near Inverell, NSW, and a tin rush begins.

July 21

The City of Sandhurst, better known as Bendigo, proclaimed. It is Victoria’s leading goldfield.

August 5

Education of children between the ages of 6 and 14 becomes compulsory in WA.

August 8

The Weld Club for WA men opens in Perth, WA.

August 20

Artist Sidney Long born.

September 11

An unidentified female arm is found in Sydney Harbour near Manly.

September 17

Up to 70 kidnapped Solomon Islanders are murdered on the Carl. Nine crew are charged, two are convicted of murder.

September 24

Mother Mary McKillop, founder of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, is excommunicated from the Catholic Church for refusing to disband her order.

September 27

Representatives from NSW, Vic, Tas and SA meet to discuss the financing of the defence of the colonies.

October 2

Singer and actress Florence Young born.

October 10

Gulgong goldfields declared ‘the promised land’.

October 15

The Government Savings Bank opens.

October 16

A Peace Festival, to celebrate their homeland’s victory in the Franco-Prussian War, is held by the German community in Tanunda, SA.

November 5

The first Melbourne Show held on a site in St Kilda Road.

November 21

Australia linked to the rest of the world by telegraph for the first time. It follows the completion of laying of cable between Java and Palmerston, NT.

December 11

Major tin deposits found at Mount Bischoff in central north-west Tasmania by prospector James ‘Philosopher‘ Smith.

December 25

Extensive gold deposits discovered at Charters Towers, Qld.

December

RSPCA founded in Melbourne.

1872

January 24

Author Ethel Turner born Ethel Burwell in Doncaster, Britain. Her most famous work is Seven Little Australians.

February 2

Catholic Cathedral Church of St Mary and St Joseph, Armidale NSW, opens.

February 22

Poet John Shaw Neilson (1872-1942) born.

February 23

Sir Alfred John Stephen administers NSW, 23rd February to 2nd June 1872.

March 11

Scoresby Primary School No 1028, the first school in the Knox area of suburban Melbourne, opens.

March 20

Melbourne’s Theatre Royal gutted by fire.

March 20

Explorer and politician William Charles Wentworth dies, age 81.

March 30

156 ton brig ‘Maria’ wrecked on Bramble Reef, Qld, 39 die.

April 4

Railway between Sydney and Murrurundi, NSW, opens.

April 17

Gold discovered at Macleay, NSW.

May 6

Adelaide General Post Office opens.

May 26

Stanthorpe, Qld, proclaimed a town.

May 31

Thursday Island and other Torres Strait islands annexed by Queensland.

June 3

Sir Hercules George Robert Robinson (later Lord Rosemead), appointed Governor of NSW (3rd June 1872 to 19th March 1879)

June 13

Melbourne Mint opens.

June 14

Copper discovered at Orange, NSW.

June 25

The first telegrams are sent from Sydney to England.

July 24

Bushranger Andrew George Scott, alias Captain Moonlight, convicted and sentenced to 11 years gaol for the Mt Egerton bank robbery, Vic.

August 4

Ernest Giles, trekking through NT, becomes the first white person to see Uluru.

August 24

Melbourne’s Prince of Wales Opera House opens.

September 13

Free compulsory education for children in Victoria introduced.

September 25

Brisbane’s General Post Office opens.

October 1

Brisbane Telegraph newspaper begins publication.

October 18

An earthquake is felt throughout eastern NSW, its epicentre is near Braidwood.

October 19

German quartz miner Herbert Otto Holtermann finds what is believed to be the largest mass of gold ever, a 7,560 ounce nugget, at Hawkins Hill on the Hill End goldfield, NSW.

October 24

Prince Philip and Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg arrive in Australia for a four week tour.

October 30

The Church of England constituted in Australia.

November 27

Gold discovered in Palmer River Valley, Qld.

December 18

Opals discovered at Listonel Downs, Qld.

1873

February 1

Italian war vessel Vittor Pisani arrives in Sydney.

February 15

The colonies agree to a Border Customs Treaty.

March 29

Retailer David Jones dies, age 80.

April 15

Explorer Peter Egerton Warburton leads a small camel train out from Alice Springs to explore the country to the west of the overland telegraph line and, if possible, penetrate to the Western Australian coast.

April 17

Female school of Industry opens in Sydney.

April 19

Explorer Alexander Hamilton Hume dies, age 75.

April 28

The Duke of Genoa visits Melbourne.

April 28

Australia’s first mustard factory opens in SA.

May 31

Trial run of the Adelaide – Glenelg tram service.

June 1

Oil street lighting installed in the centre of Perth, WA.

July 11

The first NSW Divorce Act proclaimed.

August 4

Alfred Kennerley proclaimed Premier of Tasmania.

September 2

In his second term as Premier of South Australia, Premier Sir Henry Ayers introduces the 8-hour working day in SA.

September 3

Gold discovered at Georgetown, Qld. Influx of 35,000 prospectors results in the establishment of the town of Cooktown.

September 11

Danish barque Oscar sinks off Sydney Heads, NSW.

October 27

St Andrew’s College, Sydney University, NSW inaugurated.

October 31

Australia becomes leading world producer of tin.

November 11

Laws passed in Victoria to stop the exploitation of women workers in sweatshops.

November 19

Sir James Martin appointed NSW Chief Justice.

November 21

Rail link between Melbourne and Wodonga opens. The North East line is extended in sections beyond Essendon in 1872-73. Broadmeadows is the only other suburban station beyond Essendon at this time, others are progressively added; Glenbervie (1922), Strathmore (North Essendon – 1890), Pascoe Vale (1885), Oak Park (1956), Glenroy (1887) and Jacana (1959).

November 24

Businessman Thomas Sutcliff Mort establishes a freezing works at Sydney’s Darling Harbour, NSW for the exportation of Australian meat to Europe.

December 10

Striking miners in Clunes, Vic. revolt against Chinese prospectors and miners.

December 13

Adelaide Oval opens.

December 22

Law passed to allow steam postal service between Sydney and San Francisco.

December 27

First cricket game between English 11 and Victorian 18 begins at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The English team, captained by Dr. W.G. Grace, arrived aboard steamer Nubia.

1874

January 26

Explorer Peter Egerton Warburton arrives in Roebourne, WA. after trekking across the outback.

March 1

Wagga Wagga butcher Arthur Orton found guilty of perjury in London, over his claim to being the missing heir, Sir Roger Tichborne.

March 10

Explorer Ernest Giles finds and names Petermann Range in south west Northern Territory.

March 27

Newcastle coal miners force work agreements with employers.

April 14

Copper miners at Wallaroo and Moonta, SA, return to work after striking over wage rates and conditions.

May 17

Barrister Sir Roger Therry dies, age 68.

May 23

‘British Admiral’ wrecked off King Island in Bass Strait. Nine survivors make it to Melbourne a week later.

June 2

Approval given to telegraph links between Sydney and New Zealand, Qld and Singapore.

June 15

Brisbane’s first ‘permanent’ Victoria Bridge opened, with a swinging span for tall vessels. A Cobb and Co coach is first vehicle to cross.

June 15

The original Victoria Bridge, Brisbane, opens.

June 27

Victoria’s mining unions amalgamate to form Amalgamated Miners Union.

July 10

The G.H. Peake collides with an American ship off Newcastle NSW, and sinks.

July 21

Former bushranger, Frank Gardiner, released from prison after serving only a third of his 32-year sentence on condition he leave Australia and New Zealand. He moves to the United States of America.

July

The Castlemaine to Maryborough, Vic, railway line opens. A branchline to Maldon is completed and opens for traffic on 16th June, 1884.

August 3

The flushing toilet is first demonstrated to Sydney Municipal Council by Mr P. Gibson.

September 1

George Street section of Sydney General Post Office opens.

September 17

Essayist Walter Murdoch born in Rosehearty, Scotland.

October 11

Fiji annexed by NSW Government. In return Britain pays the islands’ debts of £124,000.

October 17

Artist Lionel Lindsay born.

October 28

Adelaide citizen Sir Walter Watson Hughes offers £20,000 to the SA Government towards the building of a university. Sir Thomas Elder adds a further £30,000 to it, which sees the plan proceed.

October 30

The King of Fiji, Thakembau, arrives in Sydney at the start of a three week visit to Australia.

November 10

Explorer brothers John and Alexander Forrest arrive in Adelaide on completion of a successful trek through the outback of WA, NT and SA.

November 12

The Riot Act read to Catholic extremists demonstrating at the Ipswich School of Arts concerning Martin Luthur.

November 24

All children required by Victorian Government to be vaccinated against smallpox.

December 2

Two brothers, R.A. Arnold and W.M. (Monty) Arnold, form the Southern Rugby Union, which popularises this code based on the English football game.

December 24

Fire destroys 45 houses in the small town of Windsor, NSW.

December 24

The district of Coburg, now part of suburban Melbourne, is declared a shire.

1875

January 23

William Wellington Cairns appointed Governor of Queensland.

January 27

Foundation stone laid for Sydney’s The Great Synagogue in Elizabeth Street.

January 30

Henry Parkes and his government (NSW) fell over early release of bushranger Frank Gardiner. Parkes won the ensuing election.

February 11

Melbourne Presbyterian Ladies College opens.

February 12

A man in Dubbo, NSW dies after drinking 13.5 litres of brandy.

February 24

SS Gothenburg wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef, Qld, with the loss of 102 lives.

February 27

Adelaide ratepayers vote by referendum for a railway station in the centre of Adelaide.

April 7

St John’s College, Sydney University, opens.

April 26

Telegraph line opens between Sydney and Wallsend, NSW.

May 6

Gold discovered near Parkes, NSW.

May 24

Picture Gallery of the Melbourne Public Library opens.

June 21

Victoria Bridge, Maitland, NSW, opens.

July 1

Newcastle School of Arts opens.

July 14

Brisbane – Ipswich Railway opens.

August 8

Many buildings destroyed in a fire in Cooktown, Qld.

August 10

Crown Lands Act amended to stop ‘dummying’, fraud, intimidation in fight between squatters and selectors for land.

October 2

Sydney General Post Office introduces a new service known as the postcard.

October 9

Adelaide Steamship Company formed to carry passengers and freight between Adelaide and Melbourne.

October 20

Sir Charles Cowper, Premier of NSW, dies, age 68.

November 9

Explorer William Hilton Hovell dies, age 89.

November 10

Foundation stone of Protestant Hall, Melbourne, laid.

November 11

Explorer Ernest Giles succeeds on his third attempt to travel from Adelaide to Perth across the desert.

November 13

The first Geological map of Australia published by Victorian Dept of Mines.

December 4

Lieut-Gov of Victoria, Charles Joseph La Trobe, dies, age 74.

December 15

Bill in NSW Parliament granting married women the right to own property rejected on the grounds that ‘it would undo the God-founded institution of matrimony’.

December 17

A new ironworks blast furnace at Lithgow, NSW, fired up for the first time.

December 24

A cyclone destroys the Exmouth Gulf pearling fleet, WA, killing 59 people.

1876

January 1

School becomes free and compulsory for all children in Queensland.

January 2

The Municipality of Manly, NSW, formed.

January 4

Steamer City of San Francisco breaks the record for the trip between San Francisco and Sydney, completing the journey in under 27 days.

February 20

Mail from Britain brought overland for the first time from Melbourne to Sydney, rather than by sea. The journey takes 42 hours.

February 21

The leaders of NSW and New Zealand talk for the first time on the newly completed telegraph line between Australia and New Zealand.

February 23

Bowen, Qld, severely damaged by a cyclone.

March 5

Hobart to Evandale railway line opens.

March 25

Queensland introduces the 8-hour working day.

April 5

What is known as the Great Western Railway reaches Bathurst, NSW, from Sydney.

April 25

University of Adelaide opens.

May 2

Six convicts escape from Fremantle, WA, aboard the American whaling ship Catalpa. Attempts by the authorities to take them back into custody fail.

May 8

Last full-blood Tasmanian Aborigine Truganini dies, age 73 (?).

May 20

Victorian Humane Society inaugurated.

May 24

Writer Henry Kingsley born.

July 5

Albert Railway Bridge, Indooroopilly, Qld, opens.

August 12

The Great Queenslander disappears en route from Melbourne to London. 70 lives lost.

August 22

An Intercolonial Exhibition opens in Brisbane, Qld.

September 7

Poet and journalist C.J. (Clarence [Clarrie or Den] Michael James Stanislaus Dennis) Dennis born.

September 11

575 ton steamer Dandenong sinks off Jervis Bay, NSW in a heavy gale, resulting in the loss of 40 lives.

September 13

Trade unions legalised in South Australia, though a similar bill was rejected by the NSW Parliament a few months earlier.

September 18

Australia’s 13th Prime Minister , James Scullin, born in Trawalla, near Ballarat, Vic.

December 3

16 year old Grace Bussell, and an Aboriginal stockman, Sam Isaac, save 50 shipwreck survivors of the SS Georgette in wild surf at Calgardup Bay, south of Prevelly near present day Margaret River, WA.

November 2

A new port for the goldfields on the Hodgkinson River, proclaimed at Trinity Bay. Named Cairns after the Qld Governor, William Wellington Cairns.

November 4

Fresh refrigerated milk first delivered to customers in Sydney by Thomas Sutcliff Mort ‘s fresh Food & Ice Company at Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW.

November 5

Melbourne Academy of Music opens.

November 23

South Australian farmer Richard Bowyer Smith demonstrates his invention, the stump jump plough, at the Moonta Agricultural Show, taking out First Prize.

December 5

First Church of England Synod of the Diocese of Sydney held.

December 16

British Government agrees to send a Military Engineer to Australia to advise on its defences.

December 21

NSW Premier John Thomas (Jack) Lang, born.

1877

January 12

A plague of grasshoppers hits the Yass district, NSW.

January 17

Writer and artist May Gibbs born in Perth, WA.

February 2

Steamer Singapore wrecked near Port Mackay, Qld.

February 6

A weather map is first published in an Australian newspaper (the Sydney Morning Herald).

March 10

Township of Cloncurry, Qld, proclaimed.

March 10

A shearing machine invented by Robert Savage first demonstrated at Walgett, NSW.

March 15

The first ever cricket test match between the All-England 11 and a combined team from the colonies of NSW and Vic commences at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. On the third day, Australia wins by 45 runs – a result to be duplicated precisely in the Centenary Test played on March 12-17 1977. A second grandstand seating 2000 and facing the ground and the park (for football viewing) was built in 1876 for the 1877 visit of James Lillywhite’s English team.

March 25

Social worker Caroline Chisholm dies, age 69.

April 11

Great Western Railway reaches Wellington, western NSW.

April 14

Tightrope walker Harry L’Estrange walks across Sydney’s Middle Harbour on a tightrope.

May 1

All tolls on NSW roads and bridges abolished.

May 5

Eight of Victoria’s strongest Australian Rules Football clubs for the Victorian Football Association.

June 5

Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois releases his long awaited report on the defences of the colony of New South Wales. It precipitates a major upgrade of Sydney Harbour defences and the NSW coastline.

June 16

Publisher John Fairfax dies, age 71.

June 29

Two young German Lutheran missionaries from Bethany, SA, reach the Finke River, NT, and prepare to establish Hermannsburg, a mission to the local Aborigines.

August 28

WA joins the other states in being declared severely drought affected.

September 5

25-year old Victorian Louis Brennan patents the self-propelled torpedo.

September 8

NSW Government Astronomer Henry Chamberlain Russell survives an assassination attempt.

September 11

The collision of the Avalanche and American ship Forest off Portland, Vic, with the loss of 104 lives, is the latest in a string of naval accidents on what is now bring called the shipwreck coast.

September 18

Notorious convict gaol at Port Arthur, Tas, closes after 47 years of operation.

September 29

Townsville, Qld, ravaged by fire with many houses and public buildings destroyed.

October 8

Artist Sir Hans Haysen born in Hamburg, Germany. He migrates to Hahndorf, South Australia, in 1883.

October 12

Victorian Government introduces a land tax.

November 17

Several whites killed by Aborigines on the Daintree River, Qld.

December 9

Telegraph link between Perth, WA, and the eastern states opens.

December 19

Cable communication to Europe restored after being broken for four months.

December 29

Lawless youths take over the night streets of Melbourne, Vic. The term ‘larrikin’ is coined here to describe them.

1878

January 8

The Melbourne to Portland railway line opens.

January 13

Australia’s first telephone is tested between La Perouse and Sydney, NSW. Similar experiments are conducted in Melbourne around that time by the proprietors of McLean Brothers and Rigg.

January 14

A cyclone damages every building in Palmerston (Darwin), NT.

January

Two months after the first work gangs had actually left Port Augusta, SA, Governor Sir William Jervois turns the first sod in the construction of the North-South narrow gauge railway from Port Augusta to Alice Springs. The line, later to be known as The Ghan, would not be completed until August 1929.

February 8

Retailer Sidney Myer, born Simcha Baevski Myer, in Kritchev, Russia. A persecuted Russian Jew, he migrates to Melbourne in 1899 to join his brother, with little money and poor English. He establishes a retail empire commencing with a store in Bendigo.

March 9

Cyclones damage the town of Cairns, Qld.

March 20

Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market opens on the site of Melbourne’s first general cemetery.

March 26

The NSW Government is the first in Australia to allow the opening of the colony’s museum on Sundays.

June 15

Typhoid fever sweeps Sydney.

July 4

The NSW Government lifts restrictions on the importation of stock from other Australian colonies and overseas.

July 26

The Loch Ard sinks in Loch Ard Gorge on the Shipwreck coast of Victoria. There are only two survivors.

August 8

Clergyman and politician, Dr John Dunmore Lang, dies, age 78.

August 24

Fighting between Macanese and Chinese miners on the Palmer River goldfields leaves 15 dead. 800 Macanese and 500 Cantonese were involved in the riots.

September 21

The first tour of England by white cricket players ends with 18 wins to Australia and 12 draws in a series involving a total of 37 matches.

October 26

The Kelly Gang kill three policemen at Stringybark Creek, Victoria.

December 2

Australia’s National song, Advance Australia Fair, performed publicly for the first time at the Grand Annual Scottish Concert at the Protestant Hall, Sydney, NSW, during St Andrew’s Day celebrations.

December 11

The Kelly Gang holds up the National Bank in Euroa, Victoria, and takes £2,000.

December 23

An £81,000 iron bridge across the Murray River at Echuca permits the completion of a railway line between Melbourne and Deniliquin in the NSW Riverina district (photo).

1879

January 23

The NSW Government is the first to introduce laws restricting Chinese immigration.

February 3

The French naval ship Victorieuse, in Sydney Harbour, exhibits the electric light for the first time in Australia.

February 18

The Kelly Gang escapes with £2,141 after taking over the NSW Riverina town of Jerilderie and locking up its two policemen. It is here that he writes his famous Jerilderie Letter.

February 22

Australian artist Norman Lindsay born.

March

The Queensland town of Smithfield on the Berron River is completely destroyed by floods.

March 6

A rabbit plague, previously confined to Victoria, spreads into New South Wales. Rabbits were first released 20 years earlier near Geelong on the property of Thomas Austin.

March 20

Chief Justice Sir Alfred Stephen administers New South Wales, 20th March to 3rd August 1869

April 28

Land comprising mainly of sand hills is set aside to the east of Paddington, NSW, for what will eventually be turned into Sydney’s Centennial Park.

March

The railway line between Melbourne and suburban Oakleigh opens, establshing Oakleigh as a major regional centre with railway workshops. The line from Oakleigh to Sale in the Gippsland district had already opened in October 1877 but arguments between politicians and developers over the route of Oakleigh-Melbourne section led to delays in its construction.

May 15

George Fife Angas, pioneer of South Australia’s early settlement and development, dies age 90.

June 6

The Australian and European Bank, Melbourne, closed its doors for the last time, it being the second bank in a month to go bankrupt. the Provincial and Suburban Bank of Melbourne ceased trading on 12th May.

June 24

Queensland extends its borders to include the Torres Strait islands beyond the existing 60-mile limit.

June 16

Prospectors John Atherton and James Robson find tin deposits on the tablelands inland from Cairns, Queensland.

July 3

The NSW Government rescinds its resolution to abolish road and ferry tolls.

June 2

A new Sydney tabloid newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, begins publication.

July 6

Sydney’s Hyde Park is enclosed by iron railings.

July 26

Western Australia’s first Government railway opens between Geraldton and Northampton, a distance of 54km.

July

F.H. Faulding & Co. produce Australia’s first champagne, sparkling hock and burgundy from Australian grapes.

August 4

Baron Loftus (Augustus William Frederick Spencer), Governor-in-Chief of NSW and its dependencies (4th August 1869 to 9th November 1885).

September 15

Australia’s 14th Prime Minister, Joseph Aloysius Lyons, born Stanley, Tas.

September 18

The Sydney International Exhibition opens at the new Garden Palace building at the northern end of Hyde Park (now part of the Botanical Gardens).

September 29

Sydney’s first tram, a steam powered vehicle, makes its maiden run from Hunter Street to Redfern Railway Station.

October 8

Explorer Alexander Forrest arrives in Palmerston (Darwin), NT, after completing an 8 month journey from Perth which resulted in the opening up of vast tracts of land for agriculture.

October 26

Legislation passed by the South Australian governments allows legalised gambling on the results of race meetings.

November 19

300 residents of the Wagga district watch a shootout between police and bushranger Captain Moonlight‘s gang in which two bushrangers and one policeman are killed. Moonlight surrenders.

December

The first stage of the old Ghan Railway, between Port Augusta and Quorn, SA, opens. The narrow gauge North-South Railway line to Alice Springs will not be completed until August 1929.

1880

January 13

Shepparton, Vic, added to the Victorian railway network.

January 21

Bushranger Andrew George Scott, alias Captain Moonlight, hanged.

February 1

The news journal The Bulletin launched in Sydney.

February 12

The first stage of the Sydney Town Hall opens.

March 19

The Queensland Government offers a £1,000 reward to anyone who can cure wheat rust.

April 15

The Barrenjoey Lighthouse on Barrenjoey Head near the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, NSW, opens.

April 20

The Great Northern tin lode on the Wild River, north Queensland, is discovered by William Jack and John Newell.

May 15

Gold is discovered at Margaret River, NT.

June 10

Sir McPherson Robertson begins manufacturing confectionery in Fitzroy, Melbourne. The Robertson company’s most famous creation is the Cherry Ripe, introduced in 1924. The company is later taken over by Cadbury.

June 24

Sugar cane is grown successfully in Queensland by T.H. Fitzgerald.

June 28

The railway through the Pichi Richi Pass, SA, the first stage of the northern Trans-Australia railway, is completed as far as Hawker.

June 29

The Kelly Gang is decimated in a shootout with police at Glenrowan, Vic.

July 23

Peter Lalor, the former outlaw and hero of the Eureka Stockade, is elected Speaker in the Victorian Legislative Assembly.

July 27

The overland coach trip by Cobb & Co. between Sydney and Melbourne is completed in the record time of 27 1/2 hours.

August 1

Australia’s first telephone directory is published in Melbourne. It has 44 listings.

August 5

Royal National Park, to the south of Sydney, is gazetted, becoming the world’s first national park.

August 8

Australia’s 15th Prime Minister Earl Christmas Grafton Page born, Grafton, NSW.

September 2

The Duke of Manchester arrives in Adelaide for a visit to the colonies.

September 6

The Salvation Army holds its first meeting in Australia in Adelaide’s Botanic Gardens.

September 16

The Queensland railway service is extended to Roma.

October 2

Melbourne’s International Exhibition opens at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens.

October 27

Colonial artist, Samuel Thomas Gill, dies age 62.

November 2

The Foundation Stone of St George’s Cathedral, Perth, WA, laid by the Governor, Sir William Robinson.

November 11

Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol.

November 20

A new farming implement called the scrub roller is demonstrated by its inventor, Charles Branson, in South Australia.