Incumbents

• Monarch
  Monarchy in Australia
  The Monarchy of Australia is a form of government in which a hereditary monarch is the sovereign of Australia. The monarchy is a constitutional one modelled on the Westminster style of parliamentary government, incorporating features unique to the Constitution of Australia.The present monarch is...
  
   – King Edward VII
  Edward VII of the United Kingdom
  Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
  
   (until 6 May), then King George V
  George V of the United Kingdom
  George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
  
  
• Governor-General
  Governor-General of Australia
  The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
  
   – William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley
  William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley
  William Humble Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley, KP, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, KStJ, PC, TD, DL , styled Viscount Ednam before 1885, was a British Conservative politician...
  
  
• Prime Minister
  Prime Minister of Australia
  The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
  
   – Alfred Deakin
  Alfred Deakin
  Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
  
   (until 29 April), then Andrew Fisher
  Andrew Fisher
  Andrew Fisher was an Australian politician who served as the fifth Prime Minister on three separate occasions. Fisher's 1910-13 Labor ministry completed a vast legislative programme which made him, along with Protectionist Alfred Deakin, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation...
  
  

State premiers

• Premier of New South Wales – Charles Wade
  Charles Wade
  Sir Charles Gregory Wade KCMG was Premier of New South Wales 2 October 1907 – 21 October 1910. According to Percival Serle, "Wade was a public-spirited man of high character...
  
   (until 1 October), then James McGowen
  James McGowen
  James Sinclair Taylor McGowen was an Australian politician and the first Labor Premier of New South Wales from 21 October 1910 to 30 June 1913.-Early life and family:...
  
  
• Premier of South Australia – Archibald Peake
  Archibald Peake
  Archibald Henry Peake was an Australian politician and the 25th Premier of South Australia, serving on three separate occasions in the 1910s.-Early life and career:...
  
   (until 3 June), then John Verran
  John Verran
  John Verran was the 26th Premier of South Australia, serving from 1910 to 1912. The 1910 election saw the South Australian division of the Australian Labor Party form a majority government, the first time a party had done so in South Australia...
  
  
• Premier of Queensland – William Kidston
  William Kidston
  William Kidston was an Australian politician and Premier of Queensland, from January 1906 to November 1907 and again from February 1908 to February 1911.-Early life:...
  
  
• Premier of Tasmania – Sir Neil Elliott Lewis
  Elliott Lewis
  Sir Neil Elliott Lewis, KCMG , Australian politician, was Premier of Tasmania on three occasions. He was also a member of the first Australian federal ministry, led by Edmund Barton....
  
  
• Premier of Western Australia
  Premier of Western Australia
  The Premier of Western Australia is the head of the executive government in the Australian State of Western Australia. The Premier has similar functions in Western Australia to those performed by the Prime Minister of Australia at the national level, subject to the different Constitutions...
  
   – Sir Newton Moore
  Newton Moore
  Major-General Sir Newton James Moore KCMG , was the eighth Premier of Western Australia and a member of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1932....
  
   (until 16 September), then Frank Wilson
• Premier of Victoria – John Murray
  John Murray (Victorian politician)
  John Murray , Australian politician, was the 23rd Premier of Victoria.Murray was born near Koroit, Victoria, the son of James Murray and his wife Isabella, née Gordon, both Scottish immigrants. When Murray was a child his parents settled on a farm, Glenample station, at Port Campbell in the...
  
  

State governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Frederic Thesiger, 3rd Baron Chelmsford
  Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford
  Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GBE, PC was a British statesman who served as Governor of Queensland , Governor of New South Wales from 1909 to 1913, and Viceroy of India from 1916 to 1921, where he was responsible for the creation of the Montagu-Chelmsford...
  
  
• Governor of South Australia – Admiral Sir Day Bosanquet
  Day Bosanquet
  Admiral Sir Day Hort Bosanquet GCVO, KCB was the Governor of South Australia from 18 February 1909 until 22 March 1914.-Naval career:Born in Alnwick in Northumberland, Bosanquet joined the Royal Navy in 1857...
  
  
• Governor of Queensland – Sir William MacGregor
  William MacGregor
  Sir William MacGregor GCMG, CB was a Lieutenant-Governor of British New Guinea, Governor of Newfoundland and Governor of Queensland.-Early life:...
  
  
• Governor of Tasmania – Major General Sir Harry Barron
  Harry Barron
  Major General Sir Harry Barron KCMG, CVO was Governor of Tasmania from 1909 to 1913, and Governor of Western Australia from 1913 to 1917....
  
  
• Governor of Western Australia
  Governor of Western Australia
  The Governor of Western Australia is the representative in Western Australia of Australia's Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The Governor performs important constitutional, ceremonial and community functions, including:* presiding over the Executive Council;...
  
   – Sir Gerald Strickland
  Gerald Strickland, 1st Baron Strickland
  Gerald Strickland, 1st Baron Strickland, 6th Count of Catena, GCMG was a Maltese and British politician and peer, who served as Prime Minister of Malta, Governor of the Leeward Islands, Governor of Tasmania, Governor of Western Australia and Governor of New South Wales.-Early...
  
  
• Governor of Victoria – Sir Thomas Gibson-Carmichael
  Thomas Gibson-Carmichael, 1st Baron Carmichael
  Thomas David Gibson-Carmichael, 1st Baron Carmichael GCSI, GCIE, KCMG, DL , known as Sir Thomas Gibson-Carmichael, Bt, between 1891 and 1912, was a Scottish Liberal politician and colonial administrator....
  
  

Events

• 21 March – Harry Houdini
  Harry Houdini
  Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...
  
   achieves one of the first powered flights in Australia.
• 13 April – A referendum
  Referendum
  A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
  
   is held into alteration of the Australian Constitution regarding state debt and surplus revenue. The state debt question was carried, the surplus revenue question was not.
• 6 May – King Edward VII
  Edward VII of the United Kingdom
  Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
  
   dies, his son George V
  George V of the United Kingdom
  George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
  
   becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominion
  Dominion
  A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...
  
  s.
• 16 September – The Australian Treasury is given authority to issue currency
  Currency
  In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
  
  , replacing the use of the British Pound.
• 16 November – The Northern Territory Acceptance Act 1910 receives Royal Assent
  Royal Assent
  The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
  
   from the Governor-General
  Governor-General of Australia
  The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
  
  , transferring the Northern Territory
  Northern Territory
  The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
  
   from the control of South Australia
  South Australia
  South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
  
   to the Commonwealth.
• 19 November – A cyclone
  Cyclone
  In meteorology, a cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the same direction as the Earth. This is usually characterized by inward spiraling winds that rotate anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth. Most large-scale...
  
   strikes the town of Broome, Western Australia
  Broome, Western Australia
  Broome is a pearling and tourist town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, north of Perth. The year round population is approximately 14,436, growing to more than 45,000 per month during the tourist season...
  
  , killing 40 people and destroying 20 houses.
• 25 November – The Royal Australian Navy
  Royal Australian Navy
  The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
  
   is created with the passing of the Australian Naval Defence Act by the Federal Parliament. The destroyers HMAS Parramatta
  HMAS Parramatta (D-55)
  HMAS Parramatta, named for the Parramatta River, was a River-class torpedo-boat destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy . Ordered in 1909 for the Commonwealth Naval Forces , Parramatta was the first ship launched for the Australian navy...
  
   and HMAS Yarra
  HMAS Yarra (D-79)
  HMAS Yarra, named for the Yarra River, was a River-class torpedo boat destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy . Ordered in 1909 for the Commonwealth Naval Forces , Yarra was temporarily commissioned into the Royal Navy on completion in 1910, and handed over to Australian control on arrival in...
  
   arrive in Australia.
• 8 December – Geelong, Victoria
  Geelong, Victoria
  Geelong is a port city located on Corio Bay and the Barwon River, in the state of Victoria, Australia, south-west of the state capital; Melbourne. It is the second most populated city in Victoria and the fifth most populated non-capital city in Australia...
  
   is declared a city.

Science and technology

• Dethridge wheel
  Dethridge wheel
  The Dethridge wheel is used throughout Australia and in many other countries, including the United States, Israel and in Africa, to measure the flow of water delivered to farms for irrigation....
  
   developed – used to measure flow of irrigation
  Irrigation in Australia
  Irrigation in Australia is a widespread practice to supplement low rainfall levels in Australia with water from other sources to assist in the production of crops or pasture. As the driest inhabited continent, irrigation is required in many areas for production of crops for domestic and export use...
  
   water delivered to farms

Sport

• Comedy King wins 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...
  
  
• South Australia wins the Sheffield Shield
  Pura Cup
  The Sheffield Shield is the domestic cricket competition of Australia. The tournament is contested between teams from the six states of Australia. Prior to the Shield being established, a number of intercolonial matches were played. The Shield, donated by Lord Sheffield, was first contested during...
  
  
• The Great Britain rugby league team
  Great Britain national rugby league team
  The Great Britain national rugby league team represents the United Kingdom in rugby league football. Administered by the Rugby Football League , the team is nicknamed "The Lions" or "Great Britain Lions"....
  
   went on their first tour of Australasia
  1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand
  The 1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand was the first international tour of the Great Britain national rugby league team, "The Lions". They played the second ever Ashes series against Australia before travelling to Auckland to take on New Zealand...
  
   and defeated Australia to win the Ashes.
• 17 September – The 1910 NSWRFL season culminates in a grand final between South Sydney
  South Sydney Rabbitohs
  The South Sydney Rabbitohs are an Australian professional rugby league football team based in Redfern, a suburb of South-central Sydney, New South Wales. They participate in the National Rugby League premiership and are one of nine existing teams from the state capital...
  
   and Newtown
  Newtown Jets
  The Newtown Jets are an Australian rugby league football club based in Newtown, a suburb of Sydney's inner west. They currently compete in the NSWRL Premier League competition, having left the top grade after the 1983 NSWRFL season...
  
   which is drawn 4 – 4. Newtown are crowned premiers by virtue of being minor premiers.

Births

• 11 January – Shane Paltridge (d. 1966), politician
• 28 January – Jim Willis (d. 1995), botanist
• 7 April – Alec Downer
  Alexander Downer, Sr.
  Sir Alexander Russell Downer KBE , Australian politician generally known as Alec Downer, was born in Adelaide, a part of the Downer family and son of John Downer, who was a former Premier of South Australia and member of the Australian Senate.He was educated at Geelong Grammar School and at Oxford...
  
   (d. 1981), politician
• 10 April – Bob Marshall (d. 2004), billiards champion
• 17 April – Ivan Goff
  Ivan Goff
  Ivan Goff was an Australian screenwriter, best known for his collaborations with Ben Roberts including White Heat , The Man of a Thousand Faces and the pilot for Charlie's Angels .-Biography:...
  
   (d. 1999), screenwriter
• 2 May – Laurie Nash
  Laurie Nash
  Laurence John "Laurie" Nash was a Test cricketer and Australian rules footballer. An inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, Nash was a member of South Melbourne's 1933 premiership team, captained South Melbourne in 1937 and was the team's leading goal kicker in 1937 and 1945...
  
   (d. 1986), cricketer and footballer
• 11 May – John Béchervaise
  John Béchervaise
  John Mayston Béchervaise OAM, MBE was an Australian writer, photographer, artist, historian and explorer. He is especially notable for his work and achievements in Antarctica. Béchervaise was married to Lorna Fearn Wannan; the couple had one son and three daughters...
  
   (d. 1998), Antarctic explorer
• 16 July – Stan McCabe
  Stan McCabe
  Stanley Joseph McCabe was an Australian cricketer who played 39 Test matches for Australia from 1930 to 1938. A short, stocky right-hander,...
  
   (d. 1968), cricketer
• 22 July – Alan Moorehead
  Alan Moorehead
  Alan McCrae Moorehead OBE was a war correspondent and author of popular histories, most notably two books on the nineteenth-century exploration of the Nile, The White Nile and The Blue Nile . Australian-born, he lived in England, and Italy, from 1937.-Biography:Alan Moorehead was born in...
  
   (d. 1983), war correspondent
• 22 August – Kenneth McIntyre
  Kenneth McIntyre
  Kenneth Gordon McIntyre OBE was an Australian lawyer, historian and mathematician who is perhaps best known for his controversial book The Secret Discovery of Australia - Portuguese ventures 200 years before Captain Cook....
  
   (d. 2004), historian and mathematician
• 28 August Kathleen Best
  Kathleen Best
  Colonel Matron Kathleen Annie Louise Best, OBE, RRC was the first director of the Women's Royal Australian Army Corps.-Early life:...
  
   (d. 1957), first director of the Women's Royal Australian Army Corps
• 28 August – Tom Burke (d. 1973), politician
• 24 September – Douglas Darby
  Douglas Darby
  Evelyn Douglas Darby MP was an Australian politician, elected as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly...
  
   (d. 1985), politician
• 1 October – José Enrique Moyal
  José Enrique Moyal
  José Enrique Moyal was a mathematical physicist who contributed to aeronautical engineering, electrical engineering and statistics, among other fields...
  
  , Palesrinian-born mathematical physicist (d. 1998)

Deaths

• 4 January – Sir Frederick Darley
  Frederick Matthew Darley
  Sir Frederick Matthew Darley GCMG PC was the sixth Chief Justice of New South Wales, an eminent barrister, a member of the New South Wales Parliament, a Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales, and a member of the British Privy Council.-Early years:Darley was born in Ireland, the first child of...
  
   (b. 1830), Chief Justice of NSW
• 18 January – James Cuthbertson
  James Cuthbertson
  James Lister Cuthbertson was a Scottish-Australian poet and schoolteacher.James Cuthbertson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the eldest son of William Gilmour Cuthbertson and his wife, Jane Agnes Cuthbertson. James was educated at the secondary school, Trinity College, Glenalmond, Perthshire, where...
  
   (b. 1851), poet and schoolteacher
• 29 January – Sir Charles Todd (b. 1826), astronomer
• 19 March – James Smith
  James Smith (journalist)
  James Smith was an English-born Australian journalist and encyclopedist.-Early life:Smith was born at Loose near Maidstone, Kent, England, son of James Smith, supervisor of inland revenue, and his wife Mary...
  
   (b. 1820), journalist
• 3 April – Catherine Helen Spence
  Catherine Helen Spence
  Catherine Helen Spence was a Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician and leading suffragette. In 1897 she became Australia's first female political candidate after standing for the Federal Convention held in Adelaide...
  
   (b. 1825), writer and social reformer
• 25 April – Edward William O'Sullivan
  Edward William O'Sullivan
  Edward William O'Sullivan was an Australian journalist and politician.As a politician, O'Sullivan had strong Labour sympathies before the Labor Party had developed in New South Wales, and worked untiringly for old-age pensions until they became law in 1900...
  
   (b. 1846), journalist and politician
• 27 May – George Britton Halford
  George Britton Halford
  George Britton Halford was an English-born anatomist and physiologist, founder of the first medical school in Australia, University of Melbourne School of Medicine.- Background :...
  
   (b. 1824), anatomist and physiologist
• 25 June – Field Flowers Goe
  Field Flowers Goe
  Field Flowers Goe was an Anglican Bishop of Melbourne.-Early life:Goe was born in Louth, Lincolnshire, England, the only son of Field Flowers Goe, a solicitor, and his wife Mary Jane. Goe was educated at the King Edward's Grammar School, Louth and later at Hertford College, Oxford where he...
  
   (b. 1832), Anglican bishop
• 20 July – Anderson Dawson
  Anderson Dawson
  Andrew Dawson , usually known as Anderson Dawson, was an Australian politician, the Premier of Queensland for one week in 1899...
  
   (b. 1863), Premier of Queensland (1899)
• 13 August - Micky Dore
  Micky Dore
  Michael Joseph "Micky" Dore , was an Australian representative rugby union and rugby league player - a dual-code international. He was one of the founding fathers of rugby league in Queensland...
  
   (b. 1883), rugby league footballer
• 22 August – George Palmer
  George Palmer (cricketer)
  George "Joey" Eugene Palmer was an Australian cricketer who played in 17 Tests between 1880 and 1886....
  
   (b. 1859), cricketer
• 26 August – Thomas Petrie
  Thomas Petrie
  Thomas Petrie was an Australian explorer, grazier and friend of Aboriginals.Petrie was born at Edinburgh, fourth son of Andrew Petrie and brother of John. His family travelled to Sydney, arriving in October 1831 and his father entered the government service as a supervisor of building...
  
   (b. 1831), explorer and grazier
• 30 August – George Throssell
  George Throssell
  George Lionel Throssell, CMG was the second Premier of Western Australia. He served for just three months, from 15 February 1901 until 27 May 1901 during a period of great instability in Western Australian politics....
  
   (b. 1840), Premier of Western Australia (1901)
• 23 September – Tup Scott
  Tup Scott
  Henry James Herbert Scott was a cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. Scott, a doctor by training, later served as mayor and chief magistrate in the rural New South Wales town of Scone; he died here of typhoid in 1910.His first-class debut was at the age of nineteen in February 1878 for...
  
   (b. 1858), cricketer
• 14 November – Charles Gregory
  Charles Gregory
  Charles William Gregory was an Australian cricketer who played for New South Wales.In November 1906, Gregory scored 383 for New South Wales against Queensland, at the time an Australian record....
  
  (b. 1878), cricketer