Far East Kingdoms

Colonial Australia (Australasia) (Oceania)
Incorporating British Colonies (1787-1901), & New South Wales Colony (1788-1901)

Oceania All Modern States China East Asia Japan South-East Asia

Considered in some quarters to be a watery continent in its own right, Oceania starts where South-East Asia ends, to the south-east of Indonesia and East Timor. Its territory is somewhat debatable but generally consists of the waters of the Pacific Ocean dotted with some two thousand islands, some of which are independent states and others either parts of countries or colonies. The Australasia section encompasses Australia, New Zealand, some minor islands, and Tasmania.

Australia sits between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, lying to the south-east of Indonesia and East Timor, to the south of Papua New Guinea, to the south-west of the Solomon Islands, to the west of New Caledonia and New Zealand, and about seven thousand kilometres to the north of Antarctica. Australia is Oceania's largest land mass, today forming an independent commonwealth which consists of the entire landmass plus some surrounding islands.

The first humans to reach Australia from South-East Asia did so at some point around (or before) 60,000 BC (see feature link) during the Palaeolithic Oceania period. That early Australian population, if it left any related communities in South-East Asia, quickly lost connection with them, and they were replaced outside of Australia by populations of later South Asians and East Asians.

The beginnings of what might be termed 'Colonial Australia' began in 1642-1644, when Dutch explorer Abel Tasman left Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. He was the first European to reach the north-western coast of Australia, effectively ending the Neolithic Oceania period. His expedition took him through the Indian Ocean almost as far as Madagascar before he sailed back to reach Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, and returned to Batavia by way of the northern coast of New Guinea. The Dutch called the continent New Holland.

The Hanoverian British navigator and explorer, Captain James Cook, mapped New Zealand in 1769-1770. Immediately after that, in 1770, he became the first European to explore Australia. The first British penal colony was established there in 1787, but British settlement led to conflict with the indigenous Australians. British settlement also brought with it disease which ravaged the indigenous population.

(Information by John De Cleene and the John De Cleene Archive, with additional information from Asia in the Modern World, Claude A Buss (Macmillan Publishing Company, 1964), from The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes (Vintage, 1987), and from Hammond's Historical Atlas (C S Hammond & Co, 1963), from Historical Atlas of the World, R R Palmer (Ed, Rand McNally & Company, 1963), from The Horizon History of the British Empire, Steven W Sears (Ed, American Heritage Publishing Co, 1973), from Kingdoms of Europe, Gene Gurney (Crown Publishers, 1982), from Millennium In Maps: Exploration (National Geographic supplement, National Geographic Society, 1998), from Washington Post (4 September 1999, 16 September 1999, 20 September 1999, 20 October 1999, and 31 October 1999), and from External Links: Australia (Rulers.org), and Behind the Scenes: the Politics of Planning Adelaide, Michael Llewellyn-Smith (University of Adelaide Press, 2012, and available via JSTOR), and Bligh, William (1754-1817) (Australian Dictionary of Biography), and British Convicts to Australia, Jessica Brain (Historic UK), and Convict Cargo (National Museum of Australia), and Convict Transportation Peaks (National Museum of Australia), and Creation of a State (History of Queensland, Queensland Government), and Early humans Lived in PNG highlands 50,000 years ago (Reuters), and Historical Moments That Shaped Australia (Culture Trip), and History (Western Australia Museum Welcome Walls), and HMS Bounty (Royal Navy Museum, dead site, but page available via the Way Back Machine), and Northern Territory, Jack Cross (SA History Hub, History Trust of South Australia), and Victoria's early history, 1803-1851 (State Library of Victoria), and Whitlam Dismissal (National Museum of Australia), and BBC News (5 April 2003), and CNN News (9 April 2003), and MSNBC (9 April 2003), and Old Treasury Building.)

1606

A Dutch admiral, William Jansz, becomes the first European to find a landmass in the southern ocean. This is eventually named Australia, part of the Australasian region of Neolithic Oceania, but no effort is made to colonise it.

1642 - 1644

The Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman, and the navigator, Visscher, leave Batavia in the Dutch East Indies and reach the north-western coast of Australia in their search for a commercial route to South America. From there they sail through the Indian Ocean almost as far as Madagascar before returning to reach Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand.

Their final return to Batavia is by way of the northern coast of New Guinea. Van Diemen's Land is named for Anthony van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies and the sponsor of these voyages of discovery. The Dutch call the continent New Holland.

Born in the Netherlands around 1602, seafarer, explorer, and merchant Abel Janszoon Tasman was the first European to discover Tasmania and confirm Australia as an island continent

1696 - 1697

The Dutch explore the west coast of New Holland, including the Swan River alongside which Fremantle will eventually be established. However, they are not particularly interested in settling there due to the uninviting-looking landscape.

1769 - 1774

The British navigator and explorer, Captain James Cook, maps New Zealand in 1769. In the following year he becomes the first European to explore Australia. He reaches Easter Island in 1774

1785

The British government adopts a proposal to create a penal colony at Botany Bay in New South Wales. Authorities later decide the location is unsuitable and instead select Sydney Cove (now Circular Quay), where they land seven hundred and fifty-one convicts and two hundred and fifty-two marines and administrators.

The massive heads and torsos on Easter Island dot the landscape like stone sentinels, standing guard over the isle's treeless, grassy expanse

1787

The 'First Fleet' carries convicts in eleven vessels from Britain to Australia. Once there it sets up the first penal colony on the landmass - in fact the first European colony of any description. Two members of the fleet are Royal Navy vessels while six carry the convicts and guards.

There are two hundred and fifty native-language-speaking groups scattered around native Australia. At the time at which the British begin their colonisation efforts there are some seven hundred and fifty thousand to 1,250,000 indigenous inhabitants. British settlement leads to conflict between the new settlers and the natives, while also bringing with it disease which ravages the indigenous population.

1788 - 1792

Britain army captain. First governor of New South Wales.

1788 - 1802

Captain Arthur Philip first determines the suitability of Sydney Cove as the new settlement for convicts in Australia, and then becomes the first governor of the British colony of New South Wales. He is determined to maintain friendly relations with the Eora who live in the area of the new community.

Prisoners arrive in Van Dieman's Land in 1804, with Australia and Tasmania fulfilling the function of convict colony for Britain following the American revolution

Nevertheless, in 1790, at a meeting with the Eora at Manly, one of the tribesmen spears him. Later in the same year, Pemulwuy, an Eora warrior, kills Philip's gamekeeper who is hated by the Eora.

Philip sends out a punitive expedition. Pemulwuy leads raids against settler communities near the Parramatta, Hawkesbury, and Georges rivers in 1792. Despite an order that he be shot on sight, he evades settlers until he is finally shot and injured in 1797 and then killed in 1802.

Philip uses a system of assigning convicts to projects according to their skills, and also assigning convicts to work for free settlers, the first of whom arrive in New South Wales in 1793. Convicts build the roads and other public facilities for the new colony.

Convict life means working long hours and hard labour. Harsh punishments are handed out to anyone who violates the long list of stringent rules, with those punishments including confinement, beating, and shackling. The severe treatment of the convicts sometimes becomes even more harsh: extra punishment and solitary confinement are administered when recalcitrant convicts are deported to Norfolk Island and Van Diemen's Land.

Any visit to Tasmania begins in Hobart, but other locations are also visit 'musts', such as Mount Field National Park, Cradle Mountain, Maria Island, and Bruny Island

1789

During a return voyage from Tahiti, Fletcher Christian leads a successful mutiny aboard HMS Bounty against the captain, William Bligh. The captain and his seventeen loyal officers are given a boat while the remaining crew and officers attempt to settle on Tubuai, which rejects them. They sail again to make a home on Pitcairn Island while Bligh will become governor of Australia's New South Wales in 1806.

1791 - 1792

British explorer George Vancouver annexes the area around King George Sound and along the south-western coast of New Holland (Western Australia) for Great Britain, although no Europeans have yet settled there.

By 1792, American, British, and Australian whalers and sealers who have learned of Vancouver's explorations begin exploiting the rich resources of the area. They complicate relations with the natives, abusing their labour and kidnapping indigenous women.

This low quality rendition of a sketch of 1792 depicts Sydney Cove in the New South Wales colony of early colonial Australia, Britain's main colony there for many decades

1792 - 1794?

Acting governor of NSW. Term of office uncertain.

1794 - 1795

Acting governor of NSW.

1795 - 1800

Governor of NSW.

1798 - 1799

European visits to Van Diemen's Land have been limited to the south-eastern part of the island. In fact European visitors have not even known it to be an island until Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigate it in the sloop Norfolk between 1798-1799. From New South Wales, sealers and whalers operate in the surrounding waters and base themselves on the island starting from 1798.

1800 - 1806

Governor of NSW.

1802

New South Wales governor, Philip King, sends Lieutenant John Bowen to establish a military outpost on the River Derwent in Van Diemen's Land. The idea is to prevent the French from carrying out their own plans to take control of the island.

As depicted in 'The Coronation of Napoleon', by Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon was crowned king of Italy in Milan, in May 1805, virtually completing his domination of Southern Europe as far east as the Adriatic Sea

1803

Lieutenant Colonel David Collins, who in the following year will be the commandant of part of Van Diemen's Land, establishes a penal colony at the southern part of Port Philip Bay in what is now Victoria. The colony fails due to a lack of water.

1804

Van Diemen's Land is divided into two administrative divisions by its Australian administrators. Cornwall County covers the north of the island while Buckingham County covers the south. For the first half of this century (until 1853) the island becomes the principal penal colony in Australia until the abolition of transportation from Britain.

1806 - 1808

Governor of NSW. Former captain of HMS Bounty. Deposed.

1806 - 1808

Bligh had formerly been captain of HMS Bounty during the famous mutiny in 1789. He tends to favour the poorer newly-arrived settlers to the wealthier and more influential established colonists. Conflict arises and is not helped by Bligh's confrontational style. The powerful settlers overthrow him. He escapes to Hobart, where he receives no help and is jailed until 1810. The rebels set up their own government.

Rebelling against Captain William Bligh (pictured here) and his autocratic governance of HMS Bounty, Fletcher Christian and much of the crew eventually found a safe, if troubled, home on Pitcairn Island

1808

Acting governor of NSW (Jan-July).

1808 - 1809

Acting governor of NSW.

1809 - 1810

Acting governor for the second time. Now a colonel.

1810 - 1821

Governor of NSW. Gave rights to ex-convicts.

1810 - 1821

Under Governor Macquarie, convicts who complete their service are allowed to hold governmental positions. Such convicts already have the right to earn their own living.

1821 - 1825

Governor of NSW.

1825

Acting governor of NSW for nineteen days.

1825 - 1831

Governor of NSW. A major-general in the army.

1825

Major-General Ralph Darling, governor of New South Wales, makes Van Diemen's Land a separate colony, complete with responsible self-government and its own representative parliament. He serves as governor of the new colony for three days.

The hills of Norfolk Island as seen by a convict artist around 1812, showing a good many tree stumps as witness to the clearance of the virgin forest of Norfolk Island pine towards the end of the first settlement (A View of Queensborough on Norfolk Island, John Eyre)

1825 - 1839

Britain establishes the first European settlement in modern Queensland. A penal colony is formed at Brisbane for convicts who are deemed to be less manageable. The settlement remains part of New South Wales but, in 1839, it is closed to make room for free settlement.

1826 - 1829

French explorer, Dumont d'Urville, visits King George Sound on the southern coast of the south-western tip of New Holland (the name at the time for what will later become Western Australia). He claims the area for France, so the British quickly establish the first European settlement in Western Australia in the area at the site, now Albany. The location is in the territory of the Menang people, who call the place Kinjarling ('the place of rain').

Governor Darling sends Captain Charles Fremantle to the western coast of New Holland in 1829 to found a colony. Fremantle establishes a port which will be named after him at the mouth of the Swan River, a place the native Australians call Manjaree ('gathering place') because it has been a place in which to exchange trade goods and ideas long before the arrival of any Europeans.

Captain Charles Fremantle - seen here in full dress uniform - was sent in 1829 to the western coast of what was then New Holland to found a colony, which he did in the form of the Fremantle colony, precursor settlement to the city of Perth

A nearby location will become the city of Perth. The 'Swan River Colony' is established as a British colony which remains subordinate to New South Wales. Settlers from Great Britain begin to arrive.

1826 - 1830

A penal colony is established at Corinella on the Western Port Bay in modern Victoria. The settlement is intended to protect the area from potential French exploitation but does not last. Charles Sturt's expedition along the Murray River which now divides New South Wales from Victoria stimulates excitement for settlement.

1831

Acting governor of NSW (Oct-Dec only).

1831 - 1837

Governor of NSW (Lt-Gen). Opposed harsh convict treatment.

1832

The Swan River Colony is now set up as the independently-governed colony of Western Australia. It will for some time continue also to be known as the Swan River Colony.

1833

A peak of seven thousand convicts arrive in Australia in this year, but now public support for the transportation system is declining significantly, just as its appetite for the slave trade has also drastically reduced in recent decades.

This 1844 artwork by John Blundell shows the view from Mount Eliza of the Swan River around which was being planted the first seeds of a new British colony (View from Mount Eliza, Swan River, of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, by John Blundell, 1844

1834 - 1836

The 'South Australia Colonisation Act' establishes South Australia as a British colony which is governed independently of New South Wales, and provides for the sale of land in the province in order to attract settlers.

The colony is officially founded in 1836. South Australia is the only Australian colony which has not been established as a penal colony. Christian nonconformists help the development of South Australia and its capital, Adelaide, and contribute to the colony's distinctive character.

The same nonconformists advocate religious freedom and a willingness to experiment, but they also insist on respect for property and propriety in behaviour. A condition of settlement is obtaining the consent of the local indigenous people through treaty.

Although he declares the natives to have all the rights of British subjects, the first governor, John Hindmarsh, ignores the provision which stipulates consent. The result is that modern indigenous inhabitants of South Australia have the possibility of receiving compensation.

John Batman's treaty with the native Australians at Merri Creek on 6 June 1835 is depicted here in an artwork by John Wesley Burtt of about 1888, with Batman meeting the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung people (click or tap on image to read more on a separate page)

1834

Edward Henty founds the first permanent European settlement in Victoria, at Portland Bay, a site which so far has mainly been used as a base by whalers.

1835 - 1837

The 'Port Philip Association' is established to encourage settlers from Van Diemen's Land to purchase land from native Australians in Victoria. Two parties settle in areas which are close to the modern city of Melbourne after entering into treaties with the natives.

More settlers cross the Murray River from New South Wales. Governor Bourke is alarmed at the pace of unauthorised settlement so he attempts to regulate it. He visits the location of Melbourne in 1837 and gives it its name.

1837 - 1838

Acting governor of NSW.

1838 - 1846

Governor of NSW.

1846

Acting governor of NSW (Jul-Aug).

1846 - 1855

Governor of NSW.

1848 - 1889

'Bride Ships' bring single Englishwomen to Fremantle in Western Australia to help augment the stagnating population. Young delinquents who are known as the 'Parkhurst Boys' are also sent to help with labour.

The moment when young Victoria discovered she was queen, as Lord Conyngham (left) and William Howley, archbishop of Canterbury, kneel before her

1850 - 1868

Convicts are sent to the north-western part of Western Australia. Indentured servants from Asia also arrive to supplement the population and provide much-needed additional labour.

1851

Following agitation which had begun in 1840, Victoria is removed from New South Wales on 1 July 1851 to become a separate colony. Gold is discovered the very next day at Mount Alexander in central Victoria, and the rush is on. The gold rush attracts so many settlers to Australia that, for the first time, free settlers outnumber convicts.

1855 -1861

Governor of NSW.

1859 - 1863

Queensland is separated from New South Wales to become a self-governing colony. Inhabitants have already been agitating for years for independence from New South Wales on account of their increasing economic clout, plus the development of Brisbane as an important urban centre and port, and the distance between that part of the colony and the government of New South Wales.

A land-order system which is enacted between 1860-1863 attracts twenty-five thousand settlers to Queensland. The discovery of gold also helps to increase the population there.

The discovery of gold in Australia in the 1850s triggered a series of rushes which transformed the Australian colonies after the first discoveries were made at Ophir in New South Wales and then at Ballarat and Bendigo Creek in Victoria

1861

Acting governor of NSW (Jan-Mar).

1861 - 1867

Governor of NSW.

1863

The Northern Territory is separated from New South Wales and is added instead to South Australia. A number of reasons affect the decision, including the longstanding desire of South Australia to have direct access to the Indian Ocean and Asian markets and a miscalculated desire to expand the agricultural capacity of South Australia.

Colonists in their own desire to possess and exploit the land override the aim of the colonial office to protect indigenous tribes by expelling them from their land and concentrating them in reservations.

1867 - 1868

Acting governor of NSW.

1868 - 1872

Governor of NSW. Earl of Belmore.

1868

Having transported one hundred and sixty-two thousand convicts to Australia, including seven thousand in 1833 alone, the transportation system is now abolished.

The British North America Act of 1867 created Canadian confederation out of the various British-governed territories in North America, uniting all of them into a single body

1872

Acting governor of NSW (Feb-Jun).

1872 - 1879

Governor of NSW.

1879

Acting governor of NSW for the second time (Mar-Aug).

1879 - 1885

Governor of NSW.

1882 - 1885

Those who are unable to leave the failed French New Guinea colony on their own in 1882 are evacuated to Australia in February 1882 by the British. Three years later, the construction of a railway between Albany and Perth in Western Australia brings with it a large increase in the area's population.

1885

Acting governor of NSW for a third time (Nov-Dec).

1885 - 1890

Governor of NSW.

1890 - 1891

Acting governor of NSW for a fourth time.

1891 - 1893

Governor of NSW. Earl of Jersey.

1891

A strike by thousands of shearers in Queensland's crucial wool industry erupts after workers, already unhappy with their wages and working conditions, react to the employment of non-union men at Darling Downs Station.

Thousands of shearers in Queensland's crucial wool industry went on strike in 1891 after non-union men were employed at Darling Downs station during an already-tough time as far as wages were concerned

The strike is broken by the willingness of indigenous people, Kanaka Islanders, and Chinese immigrants to work for even lower wages. An outcome of the strike is the creation of the 'Australian Labour Party'.

A gold rush begins around Southern Cross, Coolgardie, and Calgoorlie in Western Australia and brings with it the first major wave of voluntary immigrants, mainly from eastern Australia but also from Southern Europe and other parts of the world.

1893

Acting governor of NSW (Mar-May).

1893 - 1895

Governor of NSW.

1895

Acting governor of NSW for the second time (Mar-Nov).

1895 - 1899

Governor of NSW. Viscount Hampden.

1897

Government fears of the potential extinction of the indigenous natives in Queensland results in the 'Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act'. The act authorises the removal of natives to reserves seemingly as the only way of preserving them and is not repealed until 1971.

On 1 January 1901 the six separate colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia, plus the Northern Territory became a self-governing independent commonwealth

1899

Acting governor of NSW for a third time (Mar-May).

1899 - 1901

Governor of NSW. Earl Beauchamp.

1901

A new constitution is put into effect on 1 January 1901. It unites the British colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia, plus the Northern Territory, as the collective states of the 'Commonwealth of Australia'. Eight months later, the first national flag is hoisted above the parliament of this new Australia.