1841 in Australia

The following lists events that happened during 1841 in Australia.

← 1840 1839 1838 1841 in Australia → 1842 1843 1844
Decades:	1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s
See also:	Other events of 1841 Timeline of Australian history

Incumbents

Governors

Governors of the Australian colonies:

• Governor of New South Wales - Sir George Gipps
• Governor of South Australia - Lieutenant Colonel George Gawler to 15 May then Sir George Grey
• Governor of Tasmania - Captain Sir John Franklin
• Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony - John Hutt.

Events

• 3 May - New Zealand was proclaimed a colony independent from New South Wales.
• 7 June - Darlinghurst Gaol took in its first prisoners.
• 1 July - The convict assignment system was abolished in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land and was replaced by the probation gang system.
• 27 August - Rufus River massacre.
• 1 September - Port Phillip Savings Bank was established.
• 23 October - Caroline Chisholm established the Female Immigrants Home to help unemployed new arrivals to Australia.

Exploration and settlement

• February - The first economic minerals discovered in Australia were silver and lead at Glen Osmond, now a suburb of Adelaide in South Australia.
• 7 April - Edward John Eyre becomes the first European to cross the Nullarbor Plain. He arrived in Western Australia with Wylie, an indigenous Australian who accompanied him. Eyre left Fowlers Bay, South Australia on 25 February and reached Albany, Western Australia on 7 July.[1]

Science and technology

• 13 April - the first photograph was taken in Australia by a visiting naval captain, Captain Augustin Lucas
• 24 May - Gas lighting used for the first time in Sydney.[2]
• William Bland published a paper on the first scarlet fever epidemic in Australia; probably Australia's earliest contribution to clinical medicine.

Arts and literature

• The first Australian book for children was published in Sydney, A mother's offering to her children, by a 'lady long resident in New South Wales'. Although published anonymously, the author is Charlotte Barton.[3]

Births

• 15 April - Mary Grant Roberts, zoo owner (d. 1921)[4]
• August 4 - James Chalmers, Scottish-born missionary (d. 1901)
• 24 December - Henry Dobson, politician (d. 1918)
• William Horn, politician and philanthropist (d. 1922)
• John Moffat, Scottish-born entrepreneur (d. 1918)

Deaths

• 20 January - Jørgen Jørgensen, Danish-born adventurer (b. 1780)
• 8 November - Francis Forbes, politician (b. 1784)

References

1. 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. pp. 11–12. ISBN 0-207-15108-3.
2. Munday, Rosemary, ed. (1991). "How Australia Began: Significant Dates in Australian History". The Bulletin Australian Almanac & Book of Facts 1992. Sydney: Australian Consolidated Press. p. 3. ISSN 1038-054X.
3. Barton, Charlotte (1841), A mother's offering to her children, Sydney, NSW: University of Sydney Library, Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service, retrieved 23 February 2013
4. Guiler, Eric. "Roberts, Mary Grant (1841–1921)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 29 January 2018.