1853 in Australia

Updated on Dec 07, 2024

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Decades: 1830s1840s1850s1860s1870s See also: Other events of 1853Timeline of Australian history

Governors

Governors of the Australian colonies:

Governor of New South Wales - Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy

Governor of South Australia - Sir Henry Young

Governor of Tasmania - Sir William Denison

Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria - Charles La Trobe

Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony - Captain Charles Fitzgerald

Events

This was a year of intense political agitation by miners on the Victorian goldfields.

8 January - Victoria Police formally established by Act of Parliament

22 January - University of Melbourne formally established by Act of Parliament

17 March - St Kilda Road robberies

1 August - The Bendigo Petition, 30 metres long with at least 23,000 signatures requesting reform of the license fee system that applied to miners on the gold fields, was sent to Governor La Trobe in Melbourne.

10 August - A Jubilee Festival was held in Hobart to mark the cessation of convict transportation to the colony.

15 August - the term Bunyip aristocracy was coined by Daniel Deniehy in a speech attacking the proposal by William Wentworth to create a system of hereditary peerage in Australia

3 October - Illawarra Steam Navigation Company incorporated

1 November - The first postage stamps of Tasmania are issued.

December - Victoria Police Gazette first published

Hardy Wine Company established

Exploration and settlement

European settlement began at:

Cleve, South Australia

Dongara, Western Australia

Nailsworth, South Australia

Science and technology

10 January - the Adelaide Philosophical Society founded, predecessor of the Royal Society of South Australia

Sport

23 September - occupancy of the present site of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which was part of a 'police paddock', was given to the Melbourne Cricket Club by Lieutenant Governor Charles La Trobe. This followed the forced resumption of land from the then-15-year-old Club to build Australia's first steam train railway.