1844 in Australia

← 1843 1842 1841 1844 in Australia → 1845 1846 1847
Decades:	1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s
See also:	Other events of 1844 Timeline of Australian history

The following lists events that happened during 1844 in Australia.

Incumbents

• Monarch - Victoria

Governors

Governors of the Australian colonies:

• Governor of New South Wales – Sir George Gipps
• Governor of South Australia – Sir George Grey
• Governor of Tasmania – Sir John Eardley-Wilmot
• Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony – John Hutt.

Events

• 1 January – Australia's first ringing peal rang from the bells of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
• February – public ferry service commences between Balmain East ferry wharf and the Australian Gas Light Company wharf at Millers Point, Sydney.
• 6 April – John Gavin is the first European settler to be legally executed in Western Australia. Gavin, a fifteen-year-old apprentice, was found guilty of the murder of his employer's son, George Pollard. ^[1]
• 12 September – The Royal Society of Tasmania was formed. It was the first branch of the Society established outside Britain.
• 29 September – Norfolk Island was transferred from the Colony of New South Wales to the Colony of Van Diemen's Land
• Undated – Port Augusta War ^[2]
• Undated – An unknown number of Indigenous Australians are murdered by Angus McMillan's men at Maffra as part of a series of mass murders of Gunai Kurnai people known as the Gippsland massacres.
• Undated – Aboriginal Orphans Act 1844, is enacted in South Australia, whereby the Protectors of Aborigines was made legal guardian of "every half-caste and other unprotected Aboriginal child whose parents are dead or unknown". ^[3]
• Undated – Aborigines' Evidence Act 1844 permitting Indigenous South Australians to give unsworn evidence in Court.
• Undated – Aboriginal Girls Protection Act 1844, is enacted in Western Australia to prevent Aboriginal girls from leaving or running away from school or their employed service. ^[4]
• Undated – Wellington Convict and Mission Site , convict agricultural station and Aboriginal mission closed.
• Undated – The permanent first crossing of the Yarra River opens at the site of the now Princes Bridge in Melbourne.

Exploration and settlement

• August – Charles Sturt explores the Stony Desert, fails to establish existence of an inland sea. ^[5]
• 1 October – Ludwig Leichhardt leads expedition starting from Jimbour on the Darling Downs to Port Essington, Northern Territory, arriving in December 1845. ^[5]

Science and technology

• Penfolds winery is established in Adelaide by Christopher Rawson Penfold & Mary Penfold.
• The Wheal Watkins lead and silver mine commences operations in Glen Osmond, South Australia.

Arts and literature

• A Vocabulary of the Parnkalla [Barngarla] Language, Spoken by the Natives Inhabiting the Western Shores of Spencer’s Gulf, is compiled by Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann, a Lutheran missionary in South Australia.
• Letters on the Culture of the Vine, Fermentation, and the Management of the Cellar is published by botanist and vigneron, Sir William Macarthur.
• The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List is first published by Charles Kemp and John Fairfax.
• Hawkesbury Courier newspaper commenced publication in Windsor, New South Wales by Geoffrey Amos Eagar.
• A painting of the Cascades Female Factory in Van Diemen's Land is completed by painter, John Skinner Prout.
• Louisa Anne Meredith publishes her book, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, an account of her first 11 years in Australia.

Births

Sir William Lyne

• 3 January – Michael Rush, champion rower (born Ireland) (d. 1922)
• 24 January – Alexander Paterson, Queensland politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1908)
• 31 January – James McColl, Victorian politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1929)
• 7 February – Joseph Brown, Victorian politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1925)
• 8 February – John McGarvie Smith, metallurgist, bacteriologist and benefactor (d. 1918)
• 26 February – Thomas Glassey, 1st Queensland Opposition Leader (born in Ireland) (d. 1936)
• 16 March – Thomas Blackburn, priest and entomologist (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1912)
• 28 March – Emma Howson, opera singer and actress (d. 1928)
• 17 March – Sir Henry Briggs, Western Australian politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1919)
• 6 April
  • Francis Bertie Boyce, clergyman and social reformer (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1931)
  • Sir William Lyne, 13th Premier of New South Wales (d. 1913)
• 9 May – Thomas Macdonald-Paterson, Queensland politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1906)
• 11 May – Watkin Wynne, journalist, councillor and newspaper owner (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1921)
• 16 May – Sir John Madden, 4th Chief Justice of Victoria (born in Ireland) (d. 1918)
• 28 June – John Boyle O'Reilly, Irish poet, journalist and escapee convict (born in Ireland) (d. 1890)
• 21 August – Carl Feilberg, journalist, newspaper editor and human rights activist (born in Denmark) (d. 1887)
• 26 August – J. C. Williamson, actor (born in the United States) (d. 1913)
• 27 August – Rosina Palmer (née Carandini), opera singer (d.1932)
• 30 August – William Tietkens, explorer and naturalist (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1933)
• 2 September – James Macfarlane, Tasmanian politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1914)
• 10 September – Abel Hoadley, businessman and confectioner (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1918)
• 26 September – Charles Strong, preacher and minister (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1942)
• 29 September – Edward Pulsford, New South Wales politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1919)
• 14 October – Sir John See, 14th Premier of New South Wales (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1907)
• 15 October – John Gavan Duffy, Victorian politician (born in Ireland) (d. 1917)
• 21 October – Joseph William Sutton, engineer, shipbuilder, inventor (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1914)
• 22 October – Margaret Forrest, botanical collector (born France') (d. 1929)
• 13 November – Andrew Harper, biblical scholar and teacher (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1936)
• 21 November – Ada Cambridge, writer and poet (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1926)
• 14 December – Maggie Oliver, actor and comedian (d. 1892)
• 5 December – Sir Charles Mackellar, New South Wales politician and surgeon (d. 1926)
• Unknown – William Sawers, New South Wales politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1916)
• Unknown – William McMinn, surveyor and architect, (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1884)
• Unknown – Mary Jane Cain, community leader and Gomeroi woman (d. 1929)
• Unknown – Alfred James Daplyn, painter (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1926)
• Unknown – Amy Jane Best, schoolmistress (d. 1932)

Deaths

• 13 February – John Knatchbull, murderer, is publicly executed in Sydney (born in the United Kingdom) (b.1789)
• 30 April – George Jones, bushranger is publicly executed in Tasmania (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1815)
• 19 May – Conrad Theodore Knowles, actor and theatre manager (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1810)
• 29 June – Sir John Jamison, New South Wales politician, physician and pastoralist (born in Ireland) (b. 1776)
• 8 July – John Terry, miller and farmer (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1771)
• 14 September – Prosper de Mestre, businessman and merchant (born in France) (b. 1789)
• 27 September – Sir James Dowling, 2nd Chief Justice of New South Wales (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1787)
• 22 October – John Charles Darke, explorer, died after being speared (born in the United Kingdom) (b.1806)
• Undated – Anna Josepha King, settler and First Lady of New South Wales (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1765)

References

1. "Quarter Sessions". The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal . National Library of Australia. 6 April 1844. p. 3. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
2. cnet. "Australian Frontier Conflicts – Timeline". Australian Frontier Conflicts. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
3. "Aboriginal Orphans Act 1844, South Australia". Find and Connect. Retrieved 5 November 2025.
4. "Aboriginal Girls Protection 1844, Western Australia". Find and Connect. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
5. Cameron, Angus, ed. (1985). "Part One: Facts and Figures: An Australian Historical Chronology". The Australian Almanac: 800 Pages Crammed with Australian and World Facts: Politics, the Arts, Geography, History and Much More. North Ryde, NSW: Angus & Robertson. p. 12. ISBN   0-207-15108-3.