1855 in Australia

List of events

←

1855
in
Australia

→

Decades:

Incumbents

Governor of New South Wales – Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy
Governor of South Australia – Sir Richard MacDonnell (from 8 June)
Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land – Henry Young (from 8 January)
Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria (Governor of Victoria from 22 May) – Sir Charles Hotham (until 10 November)
Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony – Captain Charles Fitzgerald, then Sir Arthur Kennedy.

5 January – The War of Southern Queensland ends with the hanging of Dundalli.
12 June – the Victorian parliament passed the Chinese Restriction Act in an effort to restrict Chinese immigration.^[1] These restrictions, including a £10 poll tax on Chinese and a limit to Chinese passengers per tonnage of shipping.
8 September – Queen Victoria signs an Order in Council to change the name of Van Diemen's Land to Tasmania.
26 September – Sydney to Parramatta railway opened^[2]

30 January – George Edwards, New South Wales politician (d. 1911)
16 February – Henry Saunders, Western Australian politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1919)
28 May – Sir William Portus Cullen, New South Wales politician and 7th Chief Justice of New South Wales (d. 1935)
18 June – George Lewis Becke, trader and writer (d. 1913)
6 August – Sir Isaac Isaacs, 9th Governor-General of Australia and 3rd Chief Justice of Australia (d. 1948)
13 August – William Astley, short story writer (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1911)
25 August – Paddy Glynn, South Australian politician (born in Ireland) (d. 1931)
28 October – Francis James Gillen, anthropologist and ethnologist (d. 1912)
22 November – Pharez Phillips, Victorian politician (d. 1914)

^ "Brief History of the Chinese in Australia". Asian Studies Program. La Trobe University. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
^ "Opening of the Sydney and Parramatta Railway". Freeman's Journal. Vol. VI, no. 275. New South Wales, Australia. 29 September 1855. p. 10. Retrieved 2 February 2023 – via National Library of Australia.

Years in Australia (1788–present)

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

v t e 1855 in Oceania
Sovereign states	Australia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu
Associated states of New Zealand	Cook Islands Niue