1804 in Australia

Incumbents

4 March – The Castle Hill convict rebellion, also known as the Battle of Vinegar Hill, takes place: 200 convicts, mostly Irish, rebel. Fifty-one convicts are punished, and nine hanged.^[1]
3 May – An Aboriginal food hunting party is attacked by settlers and soldiers at Risdon Cove. Eyewitness estimates of the death toll from the massacre vary from three or four to fifty.^[2]
16 September – A government-owned brewery is opened at Parramatta as a means of controlling the consumption of spirits.^[3]
4 November – In a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, Matthew Flinders recommends that the newly discovered country, New Holland, be renamed "Australia" or "Terra Australis" (from the Latin "australis" meaning "of the south").^[4]

15 February – Lieutenant-Governor David Collins lands at Risdon Cove in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). Unhappy with the area as a site for a settlement, Collins sends his surveyor, George Prideaux Harris, and harbour master William Collins in search of an alternative site. Harris and Collins recommend Sullivan's Cove.^[5]
24 March – The settlement at the Hunter River, also known as the Coal River, is officially named Newcastle.^[6]
8 May – Lieutenant-Governor Collins establishes the settlement at Sullivan's Cove on the Derwent River.^[7]
15 June – The name "Hobart Town", after the Colonial Secretary Lord Hobart, is adopted as the name for the new colony at Sullivan's Cove.^[7]
5 November – Lieutenant-Colonel William Paterson arrives at Outer Cove, leading the Buffalo, the Lady Nelson and two schooners, under instructions from London to form a settlement in the north of Van Diemen's Land.^[7]

^ Whitaker, Anne-Maree: Castle Hill convict rebellion 1804, Dictionary of Sydney.
^ Darby, Andrew: Debate exposes 200-year-old massacre, The Age, 4 May 2004.
^ Late in the eighteenth century, Australian Beers.
^ Flinders' letter to Sir Joseph Banks 1804, National Library of Australia, 4 November 1804.
^ Newman, Terry: Bowen Refuses to Bow Out, Parliamentary History Project (Parliament of Tasmania), December 2003.
^ Settlement at Coal Harbour and Hunter’s River to be named Newcastle, Limits of Settlement and Governorship, &c., University of Newcastle, 24 September 1804.
^ ^a ^b ^c 1803–1850s, British outpost, Tasmanian Year Book 2005, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 21 November 2006.