1879 in Australia

[edit] Incumbents

February 8 - Bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang raid the town of Jerilderie, New South Wales, locking up the town's two policemen, stealing their uniforms, cutting the telegraph lines and robbing the bank. Kelly also pens the famous Jerilderie Letter.
February 19 - The foundation stone is laid and construction begins on the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton, Victoria.
March 6 - The town of Cleve, South Australia is officially gazetted.
March 17 - The Municipality of Canterbury is proclaimed.
April 14 - The first use of a parachute in Australia occurs when Henri L 'Estrange's balloon ruptures above Melbourne's Agricultural Showgrounds.
April 21 - From 1879 the eight-hour day was a public holiday in Victoria; it celebrated the stonemasons' strike in 1856.
April 26 - Seven thousand hectares of land in Sydney's Sutherland Shire is proclaimed The National Park (later the Royal National Park).
July 1 - The Daily Telegraph newspaper is first published in Sydney.
September 17 - The Sydney International Exhibition opens at the Garden Palace.
November 13 - Bushranger Captain Moonlite take thirty hostages at a farm near Gundagai, New South Wales. A shoot-out with police ensues, resulting in the death of a policeman and two members of Moonlite's gang.

February 8 - A controversial umpiring decision at an international cricket match results in the Sydney Riot of 1879.

February 22 - Norman Lindsay (d. 1969), artist and writer
May 22 - Warwick Armstrong (d. 1947), cricketer
June 19 - James Muir Auld (d. 1942), artist
June 26 - Charles Leslie Barrett (d. 1959), naturalist, journalist, author and ornithologist
July 24 - Robert Clyde Packer (d. 1934), founder of the Packer media dynasty
September 15 - Joseph Lyons (d. 1939), Premier of Tasmania and 10th Prime Minister of Australia
October 14 - Miles Franklin (d. 1954), writer
November 18 - C.E.W. Bean (d. 1968), war journalist