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Timeline: 1891 – 1900

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1891

January 8

A cyclone, which kills 16 people, decimates the pearling fleet on the Ashburton River, WA.

January 1

Electric street lighting turned on in Newcastle, NSW.

January 7

The railway line from Port Augusta, SA, reaches Oodnadatta.

January 15

Earl of Jersey, Victor Albert George Child-Villliers, Governor of NSW 15th January 1891 to 2nd March 1893.

January 20

Western Australia’s first parliament opens under responsible government.

March 2

Granite is discovered in Eugowra, NSW.

March 3

"One people, One destiny" adopted as the slogan for the call for federation by the National Australasian Convention in Sydney.

March 2

Australia’s 23rd Prime Minister, John McEwan, born Chiltern, Vic.

March 28

Union leaders and shearers arrested around shearer’s camps across Queensland during a shearers’ strike.

April 5

A national census confirms Australia’s population of 3,233,281.

April 10

A draft constitution for the Commonwealth of Australia drawn up.

April 29

The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tas, opens.

May 13

Swimmer and businessman Francis Joseph Edmund (Frank) Beaurepaire born.

June 27

Floods destroy property from Wagga Wagga to Queanbeyan, NSW.

June 28

The newly founded Labour Party wins 36 seats in the New South Wales Parliament and holds the balance of power.

July 20

Gympie, Bundaberg and Brisbane, Qld linked by rail.

August 4

Bank of Van Dieman’s Land goes bankrupt.

August 10

Victory by pastoralists as the five month shearers’ strike ends.

August 27

Brisbane’s first wool sales held.

August 28

The Gambier sinks in Sydney Harbour after a collision. 21 people die.

September 26

NSW Premier and Australia’s Governor-General Sir William McKell born.

September 29

An experiment to link Adelaide and Melbourne by telephone is successful.

October 2

Australia joins the Universal Postal Union, the world’s postal network.

October 9

Thieves steal the mace from Victoria’s Parliament House.

October 10

67 Chinese are arrested for gambling in Botany, NSW.

October 29

Gold prospector Edward Hammond Hargraves dies, age 75.

October

The Western Australian Trades and Labour Council is formed.

December 15

Rabbits declared to be in plague proportions across Australia. Estimate of numbers is 100 per acre of outback Australia.

December 27

Extensive bushfires in the Narrandra district of NSW damage properties.


1892

February 4

Railway between Zeehan and Strahan, Tas, opens.

February 17

William Shiels replaces the disgraced James Munro as Victoria’s Premier.

March 8

The Hunter Valley, NSW, devastated by floods.

April 3

Melbourne financial and property collapse deemed a disaster by The Economist London newspaper.

April 12

Victorian Government sets up the Labour Bureau to ease an acute unemployment situation.

April 13

Singer Gladys Moncrief born.

April 14

Prohibition of bringing cheap labour from the Solomon Islands to Queensland lifted.

April 27

Eight people killed as train derails on broken track near Temora, NSW.

May 1

A May Day rally in Sydney’s domain calls for equality in the workplace and jobs for all.

June 22

Newspapers report the unemployment situation is so bad, some families are selling their own clothes to buy food.

July 5

Preferential voting system replaces the majority voting system in Queensland.

August 13

NSW, SA and Vic hold Intercolonial Postal and Telegraph Convention in Melbourne.

August 31

Uncle Toby’s Oats is introduced by Sydney businessman and food manufacturer, Clifton Love.

October 5

Australia’s first intercolonial cricket competition, The Sheffield Shield, launched. It is named after cricket enthusiast Henry North Holroyd, the 3rd Earl of Sheffield. The competition begins with three competitors – NSW, Vic and SA.

October 10

Jack Howe establishes a new sheep shearing record at Blackall, Qld – 321 sheep in 8 hours 40 minutes.

October 27

Bill to divide Queensland into three provinces reject by Qld Parliament.

September 16

Seven strike leaders arrested at Broken Hill, NSW, on charges of conspiracy.

September 19

Gold found at Coolgardie, Western Australia.

November 16

Work commences on the Fremantle Harbour works, WA.

December 8

Pioneer aviator Bert Hinkler born in Bundaberg, Qld.

December 10

The Northbridge suspension bridge across Middle Harbour, Sydney, opens.

December 24

Western Australia port of Onslow hit by a cyclone, 20 people killed, 15 pearling luggers sunk.


1893

January 26

The Federal Council meets in Hobart, Tas, and approves the Commonwealth Bill.

January 31

VFL Football player, Roy Cazaly, born.

February 4

The Brisbane River experiences record-breaking floods. Victoria Bridge and Indooroopilly Rail Bridge are destroyed. A second flood hits Brisbane two weeks later.

February 5

The central city of Melbourne is connected to a sewerage system.

February 11

Brisbane hit by worst floods on record. Most of city centre under water.

March 3

Sir Frederick Matthew Darley administers NSW 3rd March to 28th May 1893.

March 8

Australia’s first public telephone is installed at the Sydney GPO, Martin Place.

April 18

Smallpox scare in Perth, WA, after an infected ship docks at Fremantle.

March 21

Victoria wins the first Sheffield Shield cricket competition.

May 4

New banking laws passed in NSW to stop panic runs for cash on banks.

May 26

Conductor and composer Eugene Goossens born.

May 29

Sir Robert William Duff appointed Governor NSW (29th May 1893 to 15th March 1895)

June 3

Railway south from Sydney reaches Nowra, NSW.

June 13

NSW Government passes a law allowing settlement on Crown land.

June 14

Gold discovered at Kalgoorlie, WA, by Patrick Hannan.

August 16

New laws in South Australia permit deportation of Chinese immigrants without a permit.

August 25

Coolgardie, WA, laid out and declared a townsite.

September 4

Writer Francis William Lauderdale Adams dies, age 30.

September 21

The first electric trams run in Hobart, Tas.

October 17

New Caledonia linked by telegraph cable to Australia.

October 18

WA Government permits free granting of land for homesteads in rural areas.

November 14

Homelessness in Sydney and Melbourne reach new highs following numerous bank crashes.

December 4

Severe economic depression leads to closure of Victorian Government’s Teachers Training College.

December 7

Tattersall’s Sweepstakes declared illegal in NSW.

December 14

Eucalyptus oil first manufactured in Australia by F.H. Faulding & Co.


1894

January 4

50 die as a severe cyclone devastates the Western Australian pearling fleet on the north-west coast.

January 15

Australia’s first steel rolling mill opens at Lithgow, NSW.

January 15

Qld Government passes legislation allowing closer settlement of rural land.

February 13

The Mayor of Burwood, Vic, shot by a disgruntled former employee who received a pay cut.

February 22

Trade unions hold talks in Sydney aimed at tackling the unemployment crisis across the country.

February 24

Economist Douglas Copland born.

February 28

Sydney tramway service extended to Bondi Beach.

March 7

South Australia wins the 2nd Sheffield Shield cricket competition.

March 8

Electric street lighting turned on in central Melbourne for the first time.

March 25

Perth Railway Station opens.

April 28

Australia’s first street collection for charity begins in Sydney for a hospital.

May 4

Mining magnate, pastoralist and MP William Horn embarks on a scientific expedition into the interior from Adelaide.

May 5

The term "fair dinkum" first appears in print in The Bulletin.

July 18

Rabbits are found in outback Western Australia for the first time.

August 11

New Sydney Hospital in Macquarie Street opens.

August 11

The statue of Queen Victoria in Victoria Square, Adelaide, is unveiled.

August 21

The Tasmanian Government introduces a flat rate personal tax.

August 28

The second sighting of a sea monster off Newcastle, NSW, recorded.

September 4

Ongoing shearers strike in Queensland pre-empts full scale gun battle near Winton.

September 6

Carrying of firearms to become illegal in Queensland.

September 10

Pianist and composer Percy Grainger gives his first piano recital, age 12, in Melbourne.

October 2

Intercolonial meeting to discuss national defences held in Sydney.

October 15

Chief Justice Sir Alfred John Stephen dies, age 92.

October 22

Martha Needle hanged in Melbourne for insuring her husband and three daughters, then killing them for the policy payout.

November 13

Inventor and pioneer aviator Lawrence Hargreaves makes a flight over Stanwell Park, NSW, using box kites.

November 24

Railway link between Perth and Geraldton, WA, opens.

November 27

Sculptor George Rayner Hoff born.

November

Three common times zones are fixed for Australia.

December 19

South Australian women become the first in Australia to be granted a vote and the right to stand for parliament.

December 20

Australia’s 16th and 21st Prime Minister, Robert Gordon Menzies, born Jeparit, Victoria.

November 1

An horrific rail crash at Redfern station, NSW, kills 11, injures 27.

November 19

21 year old Australian writer Ethel Sybil Turner‘s novel, ‘Seven Little Australians‘, becomes an international best seller.


1895

January 6

Aviator Wilmot Hudson Fysh born.

January 29

The Victorian Government introduces income tax.

January 30

Queensland surveyor Carsten Borchgrevink becomes the first person to set foot on the Antarctic continent.

February 9

The word ‘cobber’ first appears in print in The Bulletin.

March 2

Melbourne Conservatorium of Music opens.

March 8

Businessman David Fletcher Jones born.

March 16

Sir Frederick Matthew Darley administers NSW 16th March to 21st November 1895.

March 16

Gramophones first sold in Australia by the Edison Electric Parlour.

March 30

Queensland’s first art gallery opens in the refurbished Brisbane Town Hall.

April 6

Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson‘s ‘Waltzing Matilda‘ first performed at North Gregory Hotel, Winton, Qld.

July 19

Eight miners die after being crushed by falling rock in a mine at Broken Hill, NSW.

July 31

The Art Gallery of Western Australia opens.

August 8

The City of Melbourne Bank is the latest bank to close.

August 9

Coal steamer SS Catterthun sinks off Seal Rocks, NSW. 55 passengers drown.

September 16

Writer and public speaker Mark Twain arrives in Sydney at the start of a lecture tour.

October 10

A Parliamentary Standing Committee in Victoria, set up to inquire into the possibility of providing communications services by means of narrow gauge railways or tramways, recommends the adoption of a gauge of 2 feet for no less than 14 proposed lines. The Victoria Government eventually adopted 2 feet 6 inches as the gauge for its new lines on the advice of an engineer working in India, in spite of the fact that the South Australian and Western Australian narrow gauge was 3 feet 6 inches and Queensland used the 2 feet gauge.

October 24

Signs of a lift in the economic depression appear as the prices of wool and leather rise and demand for Australian beef and mutton in England grows.

October 25

Bush verse by Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson published in book form. It includes ‘The Man From Snowy River‘, ‘Clancy of the Overflow‘ and ‘The Man From Ironbark‘.

October 31

Boxer Les Darcy born.

October

Queensland bans gambling, forcing George Adams to move his Tattersall’s Sweepstakes to Hobart, Tas.

November 22

Viscount Hampden, Henry Robert Brand, appointed Governor NSW 22nd November 1895 to 4th March 1899

December 11

Street lighting powered by hydro-generated electricity turned on in Launceston, Tas.

December 12

Income and land taxes introduced in NSW.

December 23

Sir Gerald Smith becomes Western Australia’s Governor.


1896

January 10

Tasmania passes legislation that opens the way for Federation.

January 14

A Brisbane ferry steamer capsizes on the Brisbane River, killing 28.

January 16

A record heat wave in Broken Hill causes 10 deaths.

January 22

Catholic Archbishop and Norman Cardinal Gilroy born.

January 26

Cyclone Sigma kills 18 in Townsville, Qld.

February 13

The wooden steamboat, Pearl, capsizes in flooded Brisbane River. 28 people drown.

March 7

Victoria passes legislation that opens the way for Federation.

March 7

Japan opens its first consulate in Australia, in Townsville, Qld.

March 24

The Perth to Coolgardie narrow gauge railway line opens. It is extended to Kalgoorlie on 8th September.

April 11

23-year old Victorian athlete Edwin Flack wins the 800 and 1500 metre finals at the inaugural modern Olympic Games at Athens. The only Australian at the games, he was awarded two wild olive crowns, the forerunners of gold medals.

April 9

Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Ballie, 2nd Baron Lamington appointed as Governor of Queensland.

April 27

South Australian women go to the polls, becoming the first women in Australia to vote.

April 28

Former NSW Premier and promoter of Federation, Sir Henry Parkes, dies at his home in Annandale, NSW, age 80.

June 26

Tasmania’s first copper smelter brought into operation.

July 16

An 11-week miners strike in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley, NSW, ends.

July 28

Victorian Government introduces legislation that paves the way for a minimum wage.

June 30

The New South Wales Government takes steps to stop a tick plague entering NSW from Qld.

September 17

New South Wales becomes the first Australian colony to pay an old age and invalid pension.

September 30

Moving pictures come to Australia as Tivoli Theatre screens a film.

September 30

The first man to sail solo around the world, Captain Joshua Slocum, arrives in Newcastle, NSW.

October 10

Botanist and explorer Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller dies, age 71.

October 21

Airman Patrick Gordon Taylor born in Sydney.

October 27

Western Australia passes legislation that opens the way for Federation.

November 5

Pioneer film maker, Frenchman Marius Sestier of Salon Lumiere, films part of the Melbourne Cup horse race.

November 18

Bathurst, NSW, hosts Federation Convention.

November 21

Major works by writer and poet Henry Lawson published.

December 19

Sydney’s Palace Theatre opens.


1897

January 7

A cyclone kills 28 people at Port Darwin, NT.

January 16

NSW takes over the government of Norfolk� Island.

January 19

The Sunday Times first published in Perth, WA.

February 1

The NSW Post Office becomes the first postal service in Australia to use bicycles.

March 5

Early counting in Federation Referendum in four colonies favours Federation.

May 18

Herbert Hoover arrives in Coolgardie, WA, representing a US mining consulting firm.

March 21

The first horseless carriage or motor vehicle to take to Australian streets has its first run in Melbourne after being displayed at the Cycle Show at the Melbourne Exhibition Building a month earlier.

June 15

Engineering and Electrical Exhibition opens in Sydney.

June 22

Australia celebrates Queen Victoria‘s Diamond Jubilee.

June 23

An elaborate statue of NSW’s first Governor, Arthur Phillip, unveiled in Garden Palace Grounds, Sydney, by the Governor, Viscount Hampden, Henry Robert Brand.

June 23

Brisbane’s Victoria Bridge opened by Governor, Baron Lamington. It is named to honour Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

July 7

Gatton Agricultural College, Qld opens.

August 2

Morse Code introduced as a means of communication by Australia’s armed forces.

August 16

Author and historian Marjorie Barnard born.

September 28

Dunk Island becomes the first island on the Great Barrier Reef to be settled. Its lessee/occupier is Edmund James Banfield.

October 8

Amateur Athletics Association of Australia established in Sydney.

October 31

St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, opens.

November 13

Explorer Ernest Giles dies, age 62.

November 20

Composer Margaret Sutherland born.

November 22

An entire block bounded by Flinders Lane, Flinders, Swanston and Elizabeth Streets is razed in Melbourne by fire. The damage bill is more than £1 million.

November 25

Former Queensland Premier, Sir Thomas McIlwraith expelled from cabinet, after his £250,000 debt to the failed Old National Bank is revealed.

December 3

Coal found near Collie, WA. The town is founded soon after.

December 7

NSW passes workers compensation laws to cover injuries in the workplace.

December 7

Aboriginal bushranger Pidgeon is shot by WA Police after three years on the run.

December 15

New Queensland law prohibits the use of opium and the consumption of liquor by Aborigines.


1898

January 9

At the height of the gold rush, the combined population of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, WA, tops 100,000. At the beginning of the decade, the total population of Western Australia was only 40,000.

February 8

Mackay, Queensland, hit by a cyclone.

February 10

Actress Judith Anderson born Frances Margaret Anderson-Anderson in Adelaide.

February 25

Bushfires ravage the Gippsland district of Victoria.

March 1

Sydney to Condobolin railway link opened.

March 17

Draft Constitutional Bill agreed upon at the Federation Convention, Melbourne.

April 13

Thomas Joseph Byrnes becomes Queensland Premier.

June 5

Federation Bill temporarily stalls after New South Wales votes ‘No’ in Federation referendum.

July 22

Sydney’s Queen Victoria Market Building opens.

July 27

Death duties introduced in New South Wales.

September 19

South Australian Governor Sir George Grey dies, age 86.

September 30

Samuel James Way becomes Administrator of South Australia.

October 1

Sir James Robert Dickson becomes Premier of Queensland following the death of Thomas Joseph Byrnes.

October 17

Perth Zoological Gardens opens at South Perth.

October 18

A rare book collection is left to the people of New South Wales by David Scott Mitchell. It becomes the core collection of the Mitchell Library, which would be named in honour of its benefactor.

October 28

Western Australia introduces shopping hour restrictions.

November 2

Explorer and surveyor George Woodroffe Goyder dies, age 72.

November 18

Hobart streets lit by electricity for the first time.


1899

January 17

Writer Neville Shute (Norway) born in Ealing, England.

January 21

Writer Mrs Ernestine Hill, born Mary Ernestine Hemmings in Rockhampton, Qld.

February 1

Premiers’ Conference agrees to select a site within New South Wales for the national capital.

February 21

Governor of Queensland, Sir George Ferguson Bowen dies, age 77.

February 22

Scientist Ian Clunes-Ross born.

February 27

Federation Referenda passed in Tasmania and Victoria.

March 5

Hon Sir Frederick Matthew Darley administers NSW 5th March to 17th May 1899.

March 15

10 days of cyclonic conditions destroy the Cooktown, Qld, pearling fleet of 40 boats.

April 10

Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, becomes Governor of South Australia.

May 10

Professor William Bragg and Sir Charles Dodd conduct Australia’s first successful radio (wireless) broadcast.

May 18

William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp appointed Governor of New South Wales, 18th May 1899 to 30th April 1901.

June 20

Perth Mint opens to convert the colony’s gold into gold sovereigns.

July 12

The City of York is wrecked off Rottnest Island, WA.

August

The first contingent of troops headed for the Boer War in South Africa leave from Station Pier, Melbourne.

September 2

Queenslanders vote in favour of Federation.

September 14

William John Lyne becomes Premier of New South Wales.

September 28

Western Australia continues to stall over joining Federation by again delaying its Referendum on the matter.

September 28

The first tram service in Western Australia commences in Perth, operating on a 4.8 kilometre line along Hay Street, from the Carbarn in East Perth (near the WACA cricket ground) to Thomas Street, West Perth. There was also a spur line serving residences along Colin St, West Perth.

September 30

Journalist and human rights worker Mrs Daisy Bates commissioned to investigate reports of cruelty towards Australian Aborigines.

October 12

Neil Elliott Lewis becomes Premier of Tasmania for the first of three times.

October 28

Victorian troops sent to Britain in the event of war with the Boers in South Africa.

November 29

Federal Capital Commissioner Alexander Oliver embarks on a tour of NSW, visiting towns that are lobbying him to become the Federal capital.

December 6

The Labour Party’s first stint in power in Australia lasts only five days in Queensland under Premier Anderson Dawson (born Andrew Dawson).

December 9

Electric trams first run in Sydney. Three accidents, including one fatality, mar the first day.


1900

January 4

Adelaide’s streets are lit by electricity for the first time.

January 21

Broadcasting administrator Charles Moses born.

January 25

Bubonic plague hits Sydney. 103 die.

January 26

The Federal Labour Party formed.

February 22

Whaling operations out of Hobart, Tas, cease.

March 29

Prime Minister John McEwan born in Chiltern, Vic.

April 7

Art Gallery of South Australia opens.

April

Bubonic plague hits Brisbane.

May 5

Two Melbourne businessmen drive a steam car from Bathurst, NSW, to Melbourne.

May 10

The Sierra Nevada is wrecked on Back Beach, Portsea, Vic, with 23 lives lost.

May 19

His Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, opens.

May 22

J.W. Fawcett and H.P.C. Ashworth of the Railways Department win a competition to design Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station buildings and approaches. 17 entries were received.

May 30

NSW Premier, William John Lyne, welcomes home Australia’s first soldiers from the Boer War.

July 17

Queensland Premier Sir Thomas McIlwraith dies, age 65.

July 24

Captain Sir Neville Reginal Howse wins Australia’s first Victoria Cross at Vredfort, South Africa.

July 28

Britain requests Australian troops for Boxer rebellion in China.

September 1

Western Australia votes in favour of a six-colony Federation.

September 9

The Brisbane Truth newspaper begins publication.

September 11

Soldiers of the Cross‘, Australia’s first feature film, about the Salvation Army, screens in Melbourne before an audience of 4,000.

September 17

Queen Victoria gives Royal assent to the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia.

October 17

Natural gas found at Roma, Queensland.

October 20

Classicist and author Jack Lindsay born.

October 28

Bushranger Jimmy Governor is mortally wounded in a shootout with civilians in the Hunter Valley, NSW.

July 22

Australia wins six medals, in archery, swimming and athletics, at the Paris Olympic Games (14th May – 28th October). These include two gold medals by one of Australia’s three team members – Freddy Lane.

October 31

The options for the national capital are narrowed down to three locations – Orange, Yass district (the eventual winner) and Bombala.

November 19

Sir George Turner becomes Premier of Victoria for a second time.

December 5

The Western Australian Government legislates to pay its members.

December 16

Bushfires ravage Benalla and Wangaratta, Vic.

December 18

The orginal Gembrook (Puffing Billy) narrow gauge railway opens in the Dandenong Ranges, Vic.

December 24

Western Australia’s Goldfields Water Scheme, which pumped water from Mundaring Weir to Kalgoorlie, completed.

December 31

Edmund Barton elected as Australia’s first Prime Minister, names his cabinet.



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