Events

• 20 February - Submarine cable between New South Wales
  New South Wales
  New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
  
   and New Zealand
  New Zealand
  New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
  
   completed.
• 21 March - J.V. Mulligan finds gold deposits in the Hodgkinson River in Queensland.
• 28 March - Classes commence at the University of Adelaide
  University of Adelaide
  The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
  
  .
• 18 March - Luigi d'Albertis
  Luigi D'Albertis
  Luigi Maria D'Albertis was a flamboyant Italian naturalist and explorer who, in 1876, became the first person to chart the Fly River in Papua New Guinea. He took eight weeks to steam some 580 miles up the Fly River in an Australian launch, the Neva. On board as engineer was young Lawrence...
  
   leaves Australia to explore New Guinea
  New Guinea
  New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
  
  .
• 5 June - George Thorn
  George Thorn
  George Henry Thorn was a Premier of Queensland, Australia.Thorn was born in Sydney, New South Wales, a son of George Thorn, one of the founders of the city of Ipswich and a member of the first Queensland legislative assembly. He was schooled at The King's School, Parramatta and the University of...
  
   becomes Premier of Queensland.
• 6 June - John Colton
  John Colton
  Sir John Colton KCMG was an Australian politician, Premier of South Australia and philanthropist.Colton, the son of William Colton, a farmer, was born in Devonshire, England. He arrived in South Australia in 1839 with his parents, who went on the land...
  
   becomes Premier of South Australia.
• 5 July - The completion of a railway bridge across the Brisbane River
  Brisbane River
  The Brisbane River is the longest river in south east Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay. John Oxley was the first European to explore the river who named it after the Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Brisbane in 1823...
  
   links Brisbane
  Brisbane
  Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
  
   and Ipswich, Queensland
  Ipswich, Queensland
  Ipswich is a city in South-East Queensland, Australia. Situated along the Bremer River Valley approximately 40 kilometres away from the state's capital Brisbane. The suburb by the same name forms the city's Central Business District and administrative centre...
  
  .
• 20 July - Thomas Reibey
  Thomas Reibey
  Thomas Reibey was an Australian politician and Premier of Tasmania from 20 July 1876 until 9 August 1877....
  
   becomes Premier of Tasmania
• 11 September - SS Dandenong sinks; 40 lives are lost.
• 7 November - The Melbourne Cup
  Melbourne Cup
  The Melbourne Cup is Australia's major Thoroughbred horse race. Marketed as "the race that stops a nation", it is a 3,200 metre race for three-year-olds and over. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races...
  
   is run for the first time on the first Tuesday of November
• 27 November - Legislation is enacted in Queensland creating the first public fire service in Australia.
• 2 December - SS Georgette
  SS Georgette
  SS Georgette was a steamship built in 1872. She is best known, especially in Irish-American circles for the part played in the story of the Catalpa rescue in April 1876. While the events surrounding her shipwrecking eight months later are dramatic and did capture the imagination of the local...
  
   runs aground near Busselton, Western Australia
  Busselton, Western Australia
  -Growth and development:According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the Shire had a permanent resident population of 25,950 in 2004 with the town of Busselton accounting for 67% or 17,400 of the total. The Shire's permanent population is expected to continue to increase significantly to...
  
  ; Grace Bussell
  Grace Bussell
  Grace Vernon Bussell , later Grace Drake-Brockman, was the 16-year-old heroine of the SS Georgette disaster in Western Australia on 1 December 1876. Bussell, along with Aboriginal stockman Sam Isaacs, helped save the lives of around 50 people with a quick thinking rescue from shore...
  
   becomes famous for helping to rescue the passengers.

Births

• 7 September - C. J. Dennis
  C. J. Dennis
  Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet known for his humorous poems, especially "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century...
  
  
• 10 September - Hugh D. McIntosh
  Hugh D. McIntosh
  Hugh Donald "Huge Deal" McIntosh was an Australian show-business entrepreneur born to parents of Scottish and Irish origin and modest means in Sydney's Surry Hills, then a ramshackle suburb with a reputation for crime and vice among the largely Irish immigrant population. His policeman father Hugh...
  
  
• 18 September - James Scullin
  James Scullin
  James Henry Scullin , Australian Labor politician and the ninth Prime Minister of Australia. Two days after he was sworn in as Prime Minister, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred, marking the beginning of the Great Depression and subsequent Great Depression in Australia.-Early life:Scullin was...
  
  
• 23 September - Cyril Brundell White
• 24 September - Arthur Hennessy
  Arthur Hennessy
  Arthur Stephen "Ash" Hennessy was an Australian pioneer rugby league identity. He was a seminal figure in the creation of the South Sydney Rabbitohs for whom he played and later coached...
  
  
• 4 October - Hugh McCrae
  Hugh McCrae
  Hugh Raymond McCrae was an Australian writer.McCrae was born in Melbourne, the son of the Australian author George Gordon McCrae. He was originally articled to an architect, but later took upon writing and acting, settling eventually in Sydney and Camden...
  
  
• 24 November - Walter Burley Griffin
  Walter Burley Griffin
  Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect, who is best known for his role in designing Canberra, Australia's capital city...
  
  
• 21 December - J. T. Lang

Deaths

• 22 January - George Dalrymple
• 8 March - Truganini
  Truganini
  Trugernanner , often referred to as Truganini, was a woman widely considered to be the last "full blood" Palawa ....
  
  
• 24 May - Henry Kingsley
  Henry Kingsley
  Henry Kingsley was an English novelist, brother of the better-known Charles Kingsley.Kingsley was born at Barnack rectory, Northamptonshire, son of the Rev. Charles Kingsley the elder, Mary, née Lucas. Charles Kingsley came of a long line of clergymen and soldiers, and in addition to the two...
  
  
• 29 August - John Skinner Prout
  John Skinner Prout
  John Skinner Prout was born in Plymouth, England, nephew of the famous English watercolourist Samuel Prout.Prout emigrated to Sydney in 1840, accompanied by his wife and their seven children, Prout hoping to pursue a career in Australia as a professional artist and printer...