1915 in Australia

← 1914 1913 1912 1915 in Australia → 1916 1917 1918
Decades:	1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s
See also:	Other events of 1915 Timeline of Australian history

The following lists events that happened during 1915 in Australia.

1915 in Australia
Monarch	George V
Governor-General	Ronald Munro-Ferguson
Prime minister	Andrew Fisher, then Billy Hughes
Population	4,985,569
Elections	South Australia, Queensland

Incumbents

Andrew Fisher

Billy Hughes

• Monarch – George V
• Governor-General – Ronald Munro-Ferguson
• Prime Minister – Andrew Fisher (until 27 October), then Billy Hughes
• Chief Justice – Samuel Griffith

State premiers

• Premier of New South Wales – William Holman
• Premier of Queensland – Digby Denham (until 1 June), then Thomas Ryan
• Premier of South Australia – Archibald Peake (until 2 April), then Crawford Vaughan
• Premier of Tasmania – John Earle
• Premier of Victoria – Alexander Peacock
• Premier of Western Australia – John Scaddan

State governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Gerald Strickland
• Governor of Queensland – Hamilton Goold-Adams (from 15 March)
• Governor of South Australia – Henry Galway
• Governor of Tasmania – William Ellison-Macartney
• Governor of Victoria – Arthur Stanley
• Governor of Western Australia – Harry Barron

Events

• 25 April – The Anzac tradition begins during World War I with a landing at Gallipoli on the Turkish coast.
• 30 April – Australian submarine AE2 sunk in Sea of Marmara.
• 6 June – The BHP Newcastle Steelworks opens in Newcastle, New South Wales.
• 19 July – Albert Jacka becomes the first Australian to win the Victoria Cross during World War I.
• 9 August – Alexander Burton died at Lone Pine, Gallipoli, Turkey. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.
• 24 August – The town of Holbrook was renamed from Germanton.
• 10 October – Twenty six men left Gilgandra on the Cooee March; the first of the World War I Snowball marches. At each town on the route they shouted "cooee" to attract recruits; the march arrived in Sydney on 12 November with 263 recruits.
• 27 October – Billy Hughes becomes the seventh Prime Minister of Australia and the first to serve consecutive terms in office.
• 20 December – Completion of Anzac evacuation from Gallipoli before dawn.
• Full date unknown:
  • Zaara Street Power Station is commissioned in Newcastle, New South Wales. ^[1]

Science and technology

• 10 December – Father and son scientists William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg win the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Arts and literature

Main article: 1915 in Australian literature

Sport

• Patrobas wins the Melbourne Cup
• 1914/15 the Sheffield Shield was won by Victoria; after this season it was not contested due to the war.
• The 1915 NSWRFL Premiership is won by Balmain.

Births

• 6 February – Donald Friend (died 1989), artist, writer and diarist
• 2 March – John Wear Burton (died 2010), public servant and diplomat
• 3 March – Manning Clark (died 1991), historian
• 6 March – Mary Ward (died 2021), actress
• 22 March – Charlotte Anderson (died 2002), professor of paediatrics
• 9 April – Bob Quinn (died 2008), SANFL footballer (Port Adelaide)
• 30 May – Michael Thwaites (died 2005), poet, academic and intelligence officer
• 31 May – Judith Wright (died 2000), poet
• 3 June – Jim McClelland (died 1999), senator and government minister
• 20 June – Dick Reynolds (died 2002), VFL footballer (Essendon)
• 16 July – David Campbell (died 1979), poet
• 3 August – Arthur John Birch (died 1995), organic chemist
• 26 October – Lindsay Pryor (died 1998), botanist
• 2 November – May Campbell (died 1981), field hockey player
• 25 November – Ron Hamence (died 2010), cricketer
• 29 November – Bob Cotton (died 2006), senator and government minister
• 31 December – John Murray (died 2009), politician

Deaths

Thomas Playford II

• 11 January – James Wilkinson, Queensland politician (b. 1854)
• 11 March – Thomas Alexander Browne, author (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1826)
• 4 April – Sir Francis Bathurst Suttor, New South Wales politician and pastoralist (b. 1839)
• 19 April – Thomas Playford II, 17th Premier of South Australia (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1837) ^[2]
• 25 April - William Henry Strahan, writer and soldier (b. 1869)
• 2 June – George Randell, Western Australian politician (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1830)
• 25 June – Frederick Manson Bailey, botanist (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1827)
• 28 June – Victor Trumper, cricketer (b. 1877)
• 18 July – George Marshall-Hall, composer and poet (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1862)
• 2 August – Sir John Downer, 16th Premier of South Australia (b. 1843)
• 8 October – E. Phillips Fox, impressionist painter (b. 1865)
• 29 October – Richard Edwards, Queensland politician (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1915)
• 20 November – Robert Barr Smith, businessman and philanthropist (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1824)
• 4 December – George Richards, New South Wales politician (b. 1865)
• 21 December – Thomas Sergeant Hall, geologist and biologist (b. 1858)

References

1. Myer, Harold (1925). Power Supply and Distribution.
2. John Playford (1988). Geoff Serle (ed.). Playford, Thomas (1837–1915). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 11. Melbourne University Press. Retrieved 3 January 2022.