Australia: Interesting Random Stories

The first ancestors of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Melanesian people, arrive in Australia when New Guinea, mainland Australia, and Tasmania were joined as a mega-continent referred to as Sahul. 

Sahul was a paleocontinent that encompassed the modern-day landmasses of mainland Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and the Aru Islands.

Modern Humans reached Asia by 70,000 years ago before moving down through South-east Asia and into Australia. Homo erectus had lived in Asia for at least 1.5 million years. And it is possible that these two species may have coexisted.

When Aboriginal people arrived in Australia, megafauna lived here. Giant flightless, now-extinct, birds (Dromornis planei), nicknamed the "Demon Duck of Doom", lay Melon-size eggs that were eaten by the Aboriginal people.

In some areas of Australia, such as the Central Highlands of Tasmania, Aboriginal people tapped the Eucalyptus gunnii trees so that the sap would collect in hollows in the bark or at the base of the tree. Yeasts that are floating in the air all around us all the time, would then ferment the sap into an alcoholic, cider-like beverage, that the local Aboriginal people called Way-a-linah.

Eucalyptus gunnii' or "Cider Gum" alludes to the fact that this tree has been tapped to produce a drinkable cider from the sap by Aboriginal people.

Captain Cook’s ship had a form of electricity aboard when it arrived in 1770. Joseph Banks used Leyden jars, which were primitive batteries, making a weak electric current across the salt-water-soaked canvas floor of the cabin.

The Nepean River in New South Wales, near Penrith, is named after Sir Evan Nepean, 1st Baronet. Descendants of Nepean include actors Hugh Grant (born 1960) and Thomas Brodie-Sangster (born 1990), who by chance, both appeared in the same film, "Love Actually".

John Black Caesar (c.1763-1796), convict and bushranger of African descent, was living in England when he was convicted for stealing 240 shillings and transported to Australia as part of the First Fleet. Caesar became a bushranger and robbed settlers' gardens, and stole from local Aboriginals, who speared him on 30 January 1790. Caesar also gained notoriety after he cracked the skull of Aboriginal warrior Pemulwuy, after being attacked.

"Pimbloy: Native of New Holland in a canoe of that country", engraving, on sheet, 20.8 x 26.0 cm. Samuel John Neele (1758-1824) - State Library of Victoria

Astronomers say Aboriginal astronomy stories and myths about the "seven sisters" stars may go back 100,000 years. Many other cultures around the world refer to the Pleiades as “seven sisters”. In Greek mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of the Titan, Atlas. In many Australian Aboriginal groups, the Pleiades are young girls, who are associated with sacred womens' ceremonies and stories. However, Aboriginal Australians had almost no contact with the rest of humanity for at least 50,000 years, so it is possible that these stories originate with ancestors who lived in Africa long before  the long migrations long ago.

Watkin Tench, a British marine officer, wrote one of the earliest published accounts of the First Fleet voyage and the early settlement of Australia. "Not to have read Watkin Tench," wrote Robert Hughes, "is not to know early Australia".

Portrait of Captain Watkin Tench (he retired as a lieutenant-general) from a contemporary miniature.

The Gweagal people first encountered Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook in 1770, during his voyage on the Endeavour, sailing on a ship a thousand times the size of the Natives' canoes. According to Dr Shayne Williams, Senior Knowledge Holder (Gweagal Clan of the Dharawal Nation), the Aboriginal people saw sailors actually going up and down the masts and thought they were guruwara’s (possums). See here

The Gweagal people first encountered Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook in 1770

Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, who was responsible for devising a plan to settle convicts in Australia, and after whom the city of Sydney is named, chose the name Sydney for his barony in memory of his distant uncle Algernon Sidney, who was beheaded in 1683, for writing: "the people of England…may change or take away kings".

The First Fleet, consisting of 11 vessels, was the largest single contingent of ships to sail into the Pacific Ocean, carrying over 1500 men, women and children. Only a few of the First Fleet convicts were dangerous criminals; most had committed petty crimes.

Ellen Kelly, the mother of the notorious bushranger Ned Kelly, died in 1923 at the age of 91, long enough to see planes flying in the sky and motor cars driving along what would become the Hume Highway, the main road between Melbourne and Sydney.

Convict clerk, James Hardy Vaux, compiled a dictionary of slang and other terms used by convicts in 1819 when he was an inmate at Newcastle‘s Penal Station. The dictionary became necessary reading for magistrates trying to understand the “flash” language of the convicts.

Mary Ann Bugg was born to an Aboriginal mother (Worimi) and convict father near Gloucester on the mid-north coast of NSW. She became the wife and wily accomplice of bushranger Frederick Ward, aka Captain Thunderbolt, spying for him, dressed as a man; his lover and the mother of his children.

Mary Ann Bugg, born on 7 May 1834 in the Gloucester area of New South Wales to a convict named James Bugg and an Indigenous Worimi woman named Charlotte

The father of Captain Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of the colony of New South Wales, was Jacob Phillip, a German Jew born in Frankfurt, Germany. His mother was Elizabeth Breach, an English woman.

A convict ancestor of the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, named Mary Reibey (nee Haydock), was  a convicted horse thief, sentenced to transportation to New South Wales for seven years, after being arrested, age of 13, dressed as a boy and calling herself James Burrow. Mary married Thomas Reibey, at the age of 17. Before Thomas died, he left Mary a vast pastoral, shipping and sealing business. Mary extended the operations and prospered and was said to be worth £20,000 in 1816. She became a friend of Governor Macquarie and assisted him in creating the first Bank of New South Wales. Her face has been on Australian twenty-dollar notes since 1994.

Mary Reibey née Haydock (12 May 1777 – 30 May 1855) was an English-born merchant, shipowner and trader who was transported to Australia as a convict. She gained her freedom, and became a much respected and successful businesswoman

Matthew Flinders was the first to circumnavigate Australia in 1803. At Encounter Bay on 8 April 1802, Matthew Flinders met Nicolas Baudin, captain of a Napoleon-sponsored French expedition. On his maps, Baudin referred to the land as Terre Napoléon. Flinders referred to the continent as Australia. Napoleon was obsessed with Australia and Captain Cook's journal and established a zoo with kangaroos, emus and a black swan. Baudin is said to have been shunned by Napoleon for failing to claim South Australia for France before Matthew Flinders did.

In 2019 the remains of the Royal Navy explorer Captain Matthew Flinders were found in an abandoned burial ground under Euston Station in London.

Australia in The 1890s

December 1890, the population of Australia was 3,151,355.

In 1891, the first National Australasian Convention in Sydney would produce the fundamentals of the federal system we have today. In his Tenterfield Oration of 1889 Henry Parkes had said:
" … Surely what the Americans have done by war, Australians can bring about in peace."

The University of Tasmania opened 1 January 1890.

Pedestrians, George Street, Sydney, Australia - 1890 | Historical, Street scenes, Photography news

Sydney ferry NARRABEEN, NSW (1886 - 1911) in the 1890s

Fremantle, elevated view west along High Street, WA, SLWA (1890s)

Horse trams, King William Street, Adelaide, SA. ca. 1890, SLSA

The prolonged 1890 Australian maritime dispute over pay and conditions and the role of unions.

The steamship RMS Quetta sank off Cape York Peninsula, killing 133 in 1890.

Maryborough Fire Station, QLD, with appliances ca. 1890

Members of Peterborough Brass band. SA, Approximately 1890, SLSA

Elizabeth St. from Union Bank, Hobart, TAS / J. W. Beattie, 1890, SLSA

Sir John Forrest becomes the Premier of Western Australia in 1890, when WA became a self-governing colony.

The booming economy of the 1880s was over, and the Great Crash of 1891 occurred. Widespread unemployment, homelessness and hunger. 

In 1891, 16 small banks and building societies collapsed in Melbourne in 1891.

Charitable relief provided by benevolent societies, and the government, was the major means for the poor, aged and destitute. Institutions established were immigrants’ homes, orphanages, destitute asylums.

Interior of the women’s surgical ward, Sydney Hospital, 1890s, Museum Australia

The 1891, the Australian shearers' strike occurred after the Australian Labour Federation issued its manifesto calling for social and economic injustices to be addressed. Employers responded by employing non-union labour. The Queensland Government mobilised a military response. The government’s repressive measures led to the election of 16 new Labor parliamentarians in 1893 and the formation of the Australian Labor Party. 

Strikers' Library at Barcaldine during the 1891 Shearers' Strike, State Library of Queensland

By the 1890s, most Australians lived in cities.

Central Railway Station, Sydney, NSW. Horsedrawn vehicles in operation at old Sydney Railway Station on the corner of Devonshire and George Streets. Dated: 04/10/1890, Museums of History NSW - State Archives Collection

While in Australia, Lord Sheffield donated £150 to the New South Wales Cricket Association to purchase a plate and establish the cricket competition known as the Sheffield Shield.

Financial crisis in Australia caused a GDP fall of 17 per cent over 1892 and 1893 and a collapse of private and government investment in the pastoral industry, urban development and public infrastructure investment.

February 1893, the Brisbane flood devastates Queensland.

Flood waters seen from the corner of Adelaide and Creek Streets, Brisbane, QLD, 1893, SLQLD

Hobart Boys' Home and Industrial School (1893), TAS. Alfred Kennerley (1811-1897), founder of the Hobart Boys' Home and Industrial School for orphans and boys from broken homes in 1869, premier from August 1873 to July 1876, and philanthropist -pellethepoet

Gold was discovered at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, by Paddy Hannan and two others on 14 June 1993.

The 1893 banking crisis in the Australian colonies of commercial banks and building societies. Banks at this time had few legal restrictions on their operations, and there was no central bank or government-provided deposit guarantees.

The highest ever daily rainfall was 907mm at Crohamhurst, QLD, in 1893.

In 1893, Frank Ivory was the first Aboriginal Australian to play representative rugby union (for Queensland).

Frank Ivory was the son of Francis Ivory, a wealthy Scottish landholder from Eidsvold (170 miles west of Maryborough). His Aboriginal mother, Caroline Govenji, was a member of the Gurong Gurong and Wakka Wakka tribes in the South Burnett. Frank Ivory (1871 -1957)

Ngarrindjeri mother and bubs in what looks like a kangaroo pelt cloak, Adelaide region, South Australia, 1893. Photo credit: Crump & Co. (studio photo)

A cyclone hits the north west of Western Australia in January 1894, killing approximately 50 people.

Martha Needle, is hanged in Melbourne Gaol, on 22 October 1894, for the poisoning of her husband and three children in an attempt to obtain money from insurance policies.

File:Princess Theatre Melbourne ca. 1894 State Library Victoria.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Bijou Theatre & Victoria Arcade, Bourke St. E..  VIC, 1894, SLVIC

Between 1892 and 1894, Melbourne's Council installed 20 dynamos and four boilers at Spencer Street, and in March 1894, streets in the centre of the city were lit by electricity.

The Horn Scientific Expedition was the first primarily scientific expedition to study the natural history of Central Australia, sponsored by three Australian universities (University of Sydney, University of Adelaide and University of Melbourne). Ralph Tate, F. W. Belt, J. A. Watt, W. A. Horn, W. Baldwin Spencer, Charles Winnecke, G. A. Keartland, and E. C. Stirling, 1894

South Australian women were the first in the world to get both the right to vote and to stand for election in the parliament of South Australia in 1895. 

By the 1890s, colonial governments began adopting more interventionist policies in the lives of Aboriginal people, including regulation of residence, employment, custody of children and marriage. A policy to remove children of mixed descent was intended to incorporate them into mainstream European society (now known as the Stolen Generations).

Launceston, Tasmania, becomes the first Australian city to be powered by hydro-electricity in 1895.

The University, Sydney 1895 | Australia history, Sydney city, New south Wales

Warden Quarters, Hospital & Police tents, Coolgardie, WA, ca. 1895, SLWA

Chinese humpies (i.e. shelters) near (Darwin) Palmerston in approximately 1895-1900. By the late 1800s Chinese merchants became dominant in Darwin. Approximately 1895. SLSA

Waltzing Matilda was written in 1895 by Banjo Paterson. He also wrote the bush ballads: The Man From Snowy River and Clancy of the Overflow which are classics of Australian literature.

Tom Roberts painted Bailed Up in 1895. 

Tom Roberts - Bailed up - Google Art Project, 1895

Sailing ships at Stockton Wharves, Newcastle, New South Wales, Taken circa 1895, Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons

Goulburn Gaol in the 1890s. 🌹 | New south wales, Goulburn

The Ferry boat Pearl sank in the Brisbane River on 13 Feb. 1896 after colliding with the Lucinda, killing 28.

In 1896, a film called Passengers Alighting from Ferry Brighton at Manly was the first film shot and screened in Australia.

Paddy's Hole Store, near Arltunga with election posters on display. Arltunga Goldfields were also known as Paddy's Hole, Claraville and MacDonnell Ranges. Stores were established at Arltunga in 1890. Goods were brought in by camel or horse teams from Oodnadatta. At one time the population was 200 but the goldrush had ended by 1903. Arltunga was situated in southern Northern Territory, north east from Alice Springs. The photograph depicts several residents standing outside Paddy's Hole Store under a banner stating 'Vote for Maume the independent candidate in the cause of true liberalism'. Approximately 1896, SLSA

File:Walter Baldwin Spencer seated with the Arrernte elders, Alice Springs, Central Australia, 1896 (cropped).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Lakes Creek Rugby Union Team, Senior Premiers in the 1896-97 season. Rockhampton Rugby Football Team. SLQLD

Japanese workers on Hambledon Sugar Plantation, Cairns, QLD, ca. 1896, SLQLD

The birth rate decline became well-established during the 1890s.

Queen Victoria Building, Sydney, NSW, 1896, SLNSW

During 1881-1890, the average life expectancy of a newborn boy was 47.2 years and that of a newborn girl 50.8 years. (ABS)

On 23 March 1897, a group of women met to form the Queensland Braille Writing Association, with the purpose of providing books in Braille.

Charlotte Street, Cooktown, QLD, 1897, Queensland State Archives

Bardoc Hotel, Western Australia - pre 1897. Sign above the door says: "Bardoc Hotel, W.G. Cross. This sign hangs high - It hinders none - To drink, pay and pass on"Bardoc is an abandoned town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. Aussie Mobs

The first Melbourne homes were connected to the sewerage system in 1897.

In 1897, Catherine Helen Spence, a first-wave feminist, became the first female political candidate for political office (unsuccessfully).

Portrait of Catherine Helen Spence in the 1890s, (31 October 1825 – 3 April 1910) was a Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician, leading suffragist, and Georgist.

The paddle steamer Maitland sank near Broken Bay, drowning 24 people in May 1897.

In June 1897, a referendum, is held in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria to approve the draft Constitution of Australia. The constitution was accepted by the required majority in South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, but not in New South Wales.

 Medical and Nursing Staff, Newcastle Hospital, NSW, Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), Saturday 18 September 1897

The shopping arcade Queen Victoria Building was completed in 1898 in Romanesque style, on the site of the old Sydney markets and named for long-reigning monarch, Queen Victoria.

The Gatton (Murphy Murders) unsolved triple homicides of December 1898 caused shock and outrage across the country.

Trams at North Quay, Brisbane, 1898. A Standard Combination tram and Nine Bench tram No. 63 at the old Victoria Bridge. Queensland State Archives

Henry Evans Lake Macquarie Hotel, Teralba NSW, 3 June 1898, Special Collections

Seaham Coal Company's Locomotive Number 1 'Maori', West Wallsend Colliery siding, West Wallsend, NSW, 28 March 1898, Special Collections

Western Australia granted voting rights to women in 1899.

The work, The Native Tribes of Central Australia in (1899), earned international renown providing important insights and information about Aboriginal Australian society.

The Bulletin Australian weekly magazine evolved from its beginnings in the 1880s, becoming a force behind the development of home-grown Australian literature in the 1890s.

In the 1890s, the majority of Australians, the children of the gold rush immigrants, were Australian-born.

A push for an Australian Federation began in the 1890s, for many reasons For eg: Unions opposed Queensland importing indentured workers known as Kanakas, to work in the sugar industry. There was also expansionism by European powers, France and Germany, into the region. Australia needed a national army and navy which required a federal government.

The Australian Constitution was contained in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Bill, which was endorsed by the voters of each Australian colony at referendums in 1898, 1899 and 1900, passed by the British Parliament, and given Royal Assent on 9 July 1900.

In 1899, the national rugby team of Australia played their first match. (a forerunner of the Australian Wallabies) 

March 1899, Cyclone Mahina strikes Bathurst Bay in Queensland and approximately 400 persons are killed.

The barque Loch Sloy hits rocks off Kangaroo Island, SA, and sinks, killing 31 persons, April 1899.

Jandamarra, or Tjandamurra, an Aboriginal Australian man of the Bunuba people, known to European settlers as Pigeon, formed an armed gang and led a guerrilla war against police and European settlers. In 1889, he was captured by police and charged with killing sheep. Jandamarra agreed to look after the police horses and was freed. He later retuned to his traditional land, but after violating Bunuba law, moved away to escape punishment.

In 1899, the first Labour Party government in the world took office when Anderson Dawson formed a Labour minority government in Queensland.

Between 1899 and 1902, more than 10,000 Australian soldiers sailed for South Africa to support British troops in the war against the Boer settlers.

Soldiers stand by their tents during the Boer War, 1899-1902, State Library of QLD

South Sea Islander labourer, his bride and their wedding party, Mackay District, Queensland, 1890-1900 ,SLQLD

Dot and the Kangaroo, an Australian children's book written by Ethel C. Pedley, is published in 1899.

On the 8th of December 1899, Sydney city's first electric tramway opened between Circular Quay, and the railway.

In December 1899, the population of Australia was 3,715,988.

  The National Guard on duty at Government House, NSW, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1919), Saturday 22 April 1899

Australia in The 1870s

Free primary education is first introduced in Queensland in 1870.

Circular Quay from the Rocks in Sydney, NSW, in the 1870s. Sydney city

The infant mortality rate in Australia, for children under the age of one year, was 111 deaths per thousand births in 1870.

Benevolent asylums were established in all the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century.

Deaf, Dumb & Blind Institute, before extensive renovation and addition, Sydney, NSW, 1870, SLNSW

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.

File:John and Alexander Forrest, Members of Exploring Expedition from Geraldton to Adelaide, 1874.jpg - Wikimedia Commons (Tommy Windich (Back row, second from left) 

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

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.

Dawes Battery, Sydney, NSW, c: 1870s, SLNSW

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.

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

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.)

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

"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.

Thomas John Woolcock, Thomas Woolcock and Elizabeth Woolcock

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.

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.

Aerial view of Darling Harbour and Pyrmont Bridge, NSW, 1870s, Sydney Water Photograph Collection

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.

Photograph - Unidentified Men, 1870, Tasmania, Archives Office of Tasmania

A portrait of a Transported Convict by Thomas J Nevin Port Arthur 1874 | Port arthur, Van diemen's land, Sydney new south wales

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.

Group of drovers on their horses in the Goondiwindi area, QLD, ca. 1875, SLQLD

Group of male workers in front of a timber building in the Queensland outback, ca. 1875, SLQLD

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

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

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

New Chum Gully, Bendigo, Victoria. ca. 1875, NLAUST

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

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.

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.

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.

Larrakia elder, Darwin, Northern Territory, 1870s-80s. Photo credit: Paul Foelsche.

Title: 1870s Depot camp Darwin. Original Photo Source: NT Government.

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

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.

Title: View of group on Coogee Beach looking south, NSW, 1870-5, State Library of New South Wales

Native Camp, Port Essington, NT, Date Created: 1877, Library NT

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.

Susanna Hulda Elisabeth Schupelius and Carl Gottlieb Fechner at Moculta, SA. in 1878. SLSA

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.

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.