1848 in Australia

See also: 1847 in Australia, other events of 1848, 1849 in Australia and the Timeline of Australian history.

Incumbents

Governors

Governors of the Australian colonies:

• Governor of New South Wales — Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy
• Governor of South Australia — Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Holt Robe (to 2 August) then Sir Henry Fox Young
• Governor of Tasmania — Sir William Denison
• Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony — Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Irwin.

Events

• Letters Patent of Queen Victoria declaring Melbourne a city are read on the steps of St Peters, Eastern Hill church.
• 13 February — The first non-British ship carrying immigrants to arrive in Victoria was from Germany; the Goddefroy. Many of those on board were political refugees and known as Forty-Eighters.
• 3 April — Explorer Ludwig Leichhardt was last seen on the Darling Downs.
• 11 March — The Savings Bank of South Australia opens with a single employee, trading from a room provided rent-free.
• 29 August — The Cape Otway lighthouse in Victoria is lit for the first time.

Births

• 17 February — Louisa Lawson, writer, publisher and suffragette (d. 1920)
• 24 February — Andrew Inglis Clark, Tasmanian politician (d. 1907)

Deaths

See also

• 1848
• 1840s