Brisbane’s first female refuge was opened by Ann Drew, initially in her own home, in 1870.
Between 1861 and 1870, more than 167,000 new arrivals came to Australia. During the 1870s, there was 192,000 arrivals.
On 30 March 1870, John Forrest set out on his second expedition from Perth, with six men and 16 horses, to Adelaide (over 1,500 miles) along the Great Australian Bight. Forrest was accompanied by Aboriginal men Billy Kickett and Tommy Windich, who each received payment of £12 10 shillings for their
services on the expedition.
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| File:John and Alexander Forrest, Members of Exploring Expedition from Geraldton to Adelaide, 1874.jpg - Wikimedia Commons (Tommy Windich (Back row, second from left) |
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| Archer Household outside Brisbane military barracks, c. 1870. Three of the Archer brothers and their families. The Archer brothers were among the earliest settlers in Queensland. They were explorers and pastoralists. Seven sons of William Archer, a Scottish timber merchant, spent varying amounts of time in the colony of New South Wales, mainly in parts of what later became Queensland. SLQLD |
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| View of ships in dock at a harbour in Melbourne, VIC, in the 1870's.. Approximately 1870. SLSA |
Thomas Saunders discovered gold at Gulgong, NSW, on 14 April 1870.
The last British regiment left
Australia in 1870.
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| Dawes Battery, Sydney, NSW, c: 1870s, SLNSW |
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| King William Street, Adelaide, SA, 1870, SLSA |
In September 1870, work on the Australian Overland Telegraph Line linking Port Augusta to Darwin begins. The line is completed on 22 August 1872. It has been described as the "greatest engineering feat carried out in nineteenth century Australia".
Australia had a higher GDP per capita and family living standard than any other country in 1871.(2.)
Irish immigration peaked in the 1870s.
The pearling industry in north Queensland commenced commercially in the Torres Strait around 1870. However, Aboriginal divers would not use the diving suits, and Asian workers took over from the 1870s.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales is
founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872.
The brig
Maria is wrecked when it strikes a reef near Cardwell off the coast of Queensland, killing 39 people on 26 February 1872.
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| J. Baptiste, hairdressing/barber's saloon, Hill End gold fields, New South Wales, ca. 1872, American & Australasian Photographic Company, from quarter plate glass negative, State Library of New South Wales |
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| Mayne St, Gulgong c. 1872–73, soon after Anthony Trollope's visit to Gulgong. Attributed to photographer Henry Beaufoy Merlin. SLNSW |
In the 1870s, Australian life expectancy was 46.5 years for males and 49.6 years for females. (
1.)
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| Portrait carte-de-visite photograph of four unidentified young ladies. A researcher queries if the girls on the right are Sarah and Ann Jacob. To see a selection of photographs in this collection, search on Archival number PRG 1642/55. Approximately 1870. SLSA |
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| "Beaumont" the Ipswich home of George and Mary Wilson and their 9 children - circa 1870, QLD. George and Mary Wilson had this home built by stone mason William Hancock and carpenter/joiner Samuel Shenton in 1864, where they lived with their large family of 9 children. Beaumont was a fine Colonial residence of wide verandahs, decorative carved cedar staircases and wide rooms with black and white marble fireplaces. Aussie~mobs |
Miners strike in September 1873, after workers at the South Clunes Mine (VIC) receive new contracts that include
working on Saturday afternoon. On 8 December, Chinese miners were sent to break the strike. Miners and their family took to the streets of Clune, and set up a barricade against the Chinese on 9 December. The coaches of Chinese miners from Creswick were forced to turn back after
being pelted with stones.
30 December 1873: Elizabeth Woolcock is hanged at the Adelaide Gaol, the only woman to be executed in South Australia, for the murder of her husband Thomas Woolcock by mercury poisoning.
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| Thomas John Woolcock, Thomas Woolcock and Elizabeth Woolcock |
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| Group of decorated men with shields and spears at Fraser Island, Queensland, 1870, SLQLD |
The 1870s and most of the 1880s were times of great economic development in the Australian colonies.
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| Stanthorpe's first school, ca. 1872, QLD, SLQLD |
Payable alluvial gold deposits, are discovered at the Palmer river, QLD, in 1873 by James Venture Mulligan, sparking a huge gold rush. The main settlement of the gold field was Maytown.
Hamilton Hume, the explorer, dies 19 April 1873.
David Lennox, the bridge builder, died 12 November 1873. His first bridge was built at Lapstone Hill in the Blue Mountains (built from 1832 to 1833). It is the oldest stone arch bridge on the Australian mainland. (located at
Glenbrook)
The University of Adelaide is established 1874.
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| Aerial view of Darling Harbour and Pyrmont Bridge, NSW, 1870s, Sydney Water Photograph Collection |
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| Goods yard, depot and machine shop at 2nd Sydney Railway Station, 1874, NSW |
Maloga Aboriginal Mission and school was established in 1874 for Yorta Yorta people and other groups from the Murray River region. (many Aboriginal people were vulnerable and destitute in the 1870s and many Missions upgrade their efforts in response)
Marcus Clarke's novel about the convict era,
For the Term of his Natural Life, is published in book form in 1874.
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Photograph - Unidentified Men, 1870, Tasmania, Archives Office of Tasmania
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| A portrait of a Transported Convict by Thomas J Nevin Port Arthur 1874 | Port arthur, Van diemen's land, Sydney new south wales |
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| Men described as 'unemployed strikers' standing at the base of the flagstaff at the northern end of Commercial Road near North Parade, with Queen's wharf on the right at Port Adelaide, South Australia. 1870. SLSA |
Christianity remained the overwhelmingly dominant religion of 1870s Australia.
The New South Wales Rugby Union was
founded in 1874 as the
Southern Rugby Union, before changing to its present name in 1893.
On 26 January 1875, Sydney's Jewish community gathered for the laying of the foundation stone of the central arches of the Great Synagogue.
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| Group of drovers on their horses in the Goondiwindi area, QLD, ca. 1875, SLQLD |
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| Group of male workers in front of a timber building in the Queensland outback, ca. 1875, SLQLD |
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| The wooden barque 'Wagoola', 550 tons, docked at Hobart, TAS, with the ps 'Kangaroo' in the background [wooden ship, 550 tons, ON15699, 168.8 x 28.4 x 16.9. Built 1856 Jersey. Owners: Redfern, Alexander and Co., registered London. Well known in the Hobart-London trade]. Approximately 1875, SLSA |
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| The wooden barque 'Heather Bell', 479 tons, docked in Newcastle, NSW, with the Coutts Sailor's Home in view to the furthest right. Approximately 1875, SLSA |
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| This is a group photograph of Ernest Giles' expedition party for his fourth expedition, which started in May 1875. Standing, from left to right: Peter Nicholls, Alex Ross, Saleh. Seated: Jess Young, Ernest Giles, W. H. Tietkens. Sitting on ground: Tommy Oldham. Mortlock Pictorial Collection of the State Library of South Australia |
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| New Chum Gully, Bendigo, Victoria. ca. 1875, NLAUST |
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| Goolwa and Port Elliot horse tram : Mr Scarfe, Clerk of Court at window of carriage. Eli Hillman with beard and tall hat at left of carriage. 1875, SLSA |
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| William A. Sac's Chinese Boarding House, Gulgong, ca.1875, by AAPC Wet plate negative | State Library of NSW |
On Monday, 21 February, 1876, the submarine cable was opened between Australia and New Zealand.
Truganini died in 1876 at the age of 64 at Mrs Dandridge's house in Macquarie Street, Hobart. She was buried on the
premises of the old Female Factory in Hobart. Truganini was one of the last native speakers of the Tasmanian languages and one of the last individuals solely of Aboriginal Tasmanian descent.
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| Aboriginal Tasmanian woman Truganini. Datebetween 1869 and 1876.NLAUST |
J.V. Mulligan found gold deposits in the Hodgkinson River in Queensland in 1876.
Luigi Maria d'Albertis, an Italian naturalist and explorer, travelled and explored New Guinea from 1871 to 1877,
collecting ancestral remains, tools and weapons from the houses of locals. There was a lot of criticism about his methods.
The
Catalpa rescue was the escape of several Fenian (Irish rebel) prisoners from Fremantle Prison in Western Australia to America in 1876.
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| Left to right: James Wilson, Martin Hogan, Michael Harrington, Robert Cranston, Thomas Darragh, and Thomas Hassett. (The Catalpa rescue was the escape of several Fenian (Irish rebel) prisoners from Fremantle Prison in Western Australia to America in 1876) |
SS
Dandenong sank off Jervis Bay, NSW, on September 11, 1876, resulting in the deaths of 40 people.
On 26 September, 1855, the first passenger railway line in NSW opened from Sydney to "Parramatta Junction". The Rail line was extended to Bathurst in 1876.
The Stump Jump Plough was invented by the Smith brothers in 1876 in South Australia.
In 1876, passengers and crew from the steamship the SS
Georgette, which was en-route from Fremantle to Adelaide, were rescued by 16 year old Grace Bussell and 25 year old Aboriginal stockman Sam Isaacs. Grace and Sam were hailed as heroes. Grace received a silver medal from the Royal Humane
Society and a gold watch. Sam was given a bronze medal and 100 acres of land from the State Government.
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| Larrakia elder, Darwin, Northern Territory, 1870s-80s. Photo credit: Paul Foelsche. |
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| Title: 1870s Depot camp Darwin. Original Photo Source: NT Government. |
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Views of South Australia : Port Pirie. J. Dunn & Co. flour mill, train in front with bags of grain in wagons, bags on wharf, sailing ships tied up at wharf. 1876. SLSA
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The rail line from Hobart to Evandale Road (later Western Junction) opened in 1876. (TAS)
The Finke River Mission of the Lutheran Church of Australia was established in 1877 at Finke River in the Northern Territory.
The penal
settlement at Port Arthur was closed in 1877.
The humanitarian Caroline Chisholm died 25 March 1877.
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| Title: View of group on Coogee Beach looking south, NSW, 1870-5, State Library of New South Wales |
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| Native Camp, Port Essington, NT, Date Created: 1877, Library NT |
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| View along Drummond Street, Clermont, QLD, ca. 1877, SLQLD |
Henry Chamberlain Russell, the NSW government astronomer and meteorologist from February 1877, released a daily weather map to the press.
The first electric light is switched on at a public
demonstration in William Street, Brisbane, in 1878.
The "Black Wednesday" mass sacking of senior public servants by Graham Berry occurred in 1878 to penalise the Legislative Council, which had failed to pass a government supply bill.
On 20 May 1878, one thousand unemployed men marched up Collins Street, Melbourne, demanding relief work.
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| Susanna Hulda Elisabeth Schupelius and Carl Gottlieb Fechner at Moculta, SA. in 1878. SLSA |
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| View of the town of Charters Towers, QLD, around 1878, SLQLD |
The Seamans Union organises the maritime strike in 1878, against the use of Chinese labour, who were paid less than half the wages of the European crew, by the Australian United Steam Navigation Company.
With the acceptance of Germ Theory in the 1870s, antiseptic surgical methods were shown to work and became common practice.
Advance Australia Fair written by Scottish-born composer Peter Dodds McCormick was first
performed as a patriotic song in Australia in 1878.
The clipper ship
Loch Ard is wrecked at Mutton Bird Island, Victoria, on 1 June 1878, 45 people die and only 2 lives are saved.
1878: A violent confrontation between police and Ned Kelly occurred at the Kelly family's home in 1878, and Kelly was indicted for his attempted murder. He fled into the bush, vowing to avenge his mother, who was imprisoned for her role in the incident.
1878-9: The Kelly Gangs raids on Euroa and Jerilderie, and the killing of Aaron Sherritt, a sympathiser turned police informer. Ned's manifesto letter denounces the police, the Victorian government and the British Empire.
Australian Histories Podcast
Australia's first commercial telephone service in 1879 connected the Flinders Street offices and the South Melbourne foundry of the Robison Brothers.
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| Crowds gathered outside the Garden Palace, Sydney, NSW, 1879, The Garden Palace was a large, purpose-built exhibition building constructed to house the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879 in Sydney, Australia. It was designed by James Barnet and constructed by John Young, at a cost of £191,800 in only eight months. NLAUST |
A birthrate decline occurred in Australia between 1870 and 1910 when fertility fell from an average of over six children per woman to under four.
Until the late 1870s on Kangaroo Island, Tasmania, three Aboriginal women – Sal, Suke, and Betty continued to live traditionally, clearing the land with fire and hunting with dogs.
