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 George VI
  George VI of the United Kingdom
  George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
  
  
• 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...
  
   – Alexander Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie
  Alexander Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie
  Brigadier General Alexander Gore Arkwright Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie VC, GCMG, CB, DSO & Bar, PC was a British soldier and colonial governor and the tenth Governor-General of Australia. Serving for 9 years and 7 days, he is the longest serving Governor-General in Australia's history...
  
  
• 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...
  
   – Joseph Lyons
  Joseph Lyons
  Joseph Aloysius Lyons, CH was an Australian politician. He was Labor Premier of Tasmania from 1923 to 1928 and a Minister in the James Scullin government from 1929 until his resignation from the Labor Party in March 1931...
  
  

State Premiers

• Premier of New South Wales – Bertram Stevens
• Premier of Queensland – William Forgan Smith
  William Forgan Smith
  William Forgan Smith , generally known as Forgan Smith, was Premier of the Australian state of Queensland from 1932 to 1942. He came to dominate politics in the state during the 1930s, and his populism, firm leadership, defence of states' rights and interest in state development make him something...
  
  
• Premier of South Australia – Richard L. Butler
  Richard Layton Butler
  Sir Richard Layton Butler KCMG was the 31st Premier of South Australia, serving two disjunct terms in office: from 1927 to 1930, and again from 1933 to 1938....
  
  
• Premier of Tasmania – Albert Ogilvie
  Albert Ogilvie
  Albert George Ogilvie was an Australian politician and Premier of Tasmania from 22 June 1934 until his death on 10 June 1939....
  
  
• Premier of Victoria – Albert Dunstan
  Albert Dunstan
  Sir Albert Arthur Dunstan, KCMG was an Australian politician. A member of the Country Party , Dunstan was the 33rd Premier of Victoria. His term as Premier was the second-longest in the state's history, behind Sir Henry Bolte...
  
  
• 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...
  
   – John Willcock
  John Willcock
  John Collings Willcock was the 15th Premier of Western Australia.-Early life:John Willcock was born at Frogmoor , New South Wales on 9 August 1879. The son of miner Joseph Willcock, he was educated at Sydney High School before emigrating to Western Australia in 1897...
  
  

State Governors

• Governor of New South Wales – John Loder, 2nd Baron Wakehurst (from 8 April)
• Governor of Queensland – Sir Leslie Orme Wilson
  Leslie Orme Wilson
  Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, DSO, PC was a British soldier, Conservative politician and Governor of Queensland.-Personal life:...
  
  
• Governor of South Australia – Sir Winston Dugan
  Winston Dugan, 1st Baron Dugan of Victoria
  Major-General Winston Joseph Dugan, 1st Baron Dugan of Victoria GCMG, CB, DSO, KStJ , known as Sir Winston Dugan between 1934 and 1949, was a British administrator and a career British Army officer...
  
  
• Governor of Tasmania – Sir Ernest Clark
  Ernest Clark (governor)
  Sir Ernest Clark, GCMG, KCB, CBE was a British civil servant, who was Governor of Tasmania from 1933 to 1945.-Early life and education:...
  
  
• Governor of Victoria – William Vanneck, 5th Baron Huntingfield
  William Vanneck, 5th Baron Huntingfield
  William Charles Arcedeckne Vanneck, 5th Baron Huntingfield, KCMG was a British Conservative Party politician, Governor of Victoria and Administrator of Australia.-Early life:...
  
  
• 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;...
  
   – none appointed

Events

• 9 February – Cairns
  Cairns, Queensland
  Cairns is a regional city in Far North Queensland, Australia, founded 1876. The city was named after William Wellington Cairns, then-current Governor of Queensland. It was formed to serve miners heading for the Hodgkinson River goldfield, but experienced a decline when an easier route was...
  
   is hit by a tropical cyclone
  Tropical cyclone
  A tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low-pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain. Tropical cyclones strengthen when water evaporated from the ocean is released as the saturated air rises, resulting in condensation of water vapor...
  
  .
• 15 February – An explosion kills 13 men at the State Coal Mine in Wonthaggi, Victoria
  Wonthaggi, Victoria
  Wonthaggi is a town located south east of Melbourne via the South Gippsland and Bass Highways, in the Bass Coast Shire of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia...
  
  .
• 20 February – A general election
  Tasmanian state election, 1937
  A general election for the House of Assembly was held in the Australian state of Tasmania on 20 February 1937.-Background:The incumbent Labor government was led by Albert Ogilvie...
  
   is held in Tasmania
  Tasmania
  Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
  
  . The incumbent Labor
  Australian Labor Party
  The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
  
   government led by Albert Ogilvie
  Albert Ogilvie
  Albert George Ogilvie was an Australian politician and Premier of Tasmania from 22 June 1934 until his death on 10 June 1939....
  
   is returned to power.
• 1 March – Bernard O'Reilly locates the wreckage of an Airlines of Australia Stinson
  Stinson Aircraft Company
  The Stinson Aircraft Company was an aircraft manufacturing company in the United States between the 1920s and the 1950s.-The Company:The Stinson Aircraft Company was founded in Dayton, Ohio, in 1920 by aviator Edward “Eddie” Stinson, brother to Katherine Stinson. After five years of business...
  
   airliner, VH-UHH City of Brisbane, in the McPherson Range
  McPherson Range
  The McPherson Range is an extensive mountain range, a spur of the Great Dividing Range, heading in an easterly direction from near Wallangarra to the Pacific Ocean coastline. It forms part of the Scenic Rim on the border between the states of New South Wales and Queensland. Further west of the...
  
   in southern Queensland
  Queensland
  Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
  
  . Two survivors are rescued, five others did not survive.
• 20 April – Regular airmail
  Airmail
  Airmail is mail that is transported by aircraft. It typically arrives more quickly than surface mail, and usually costs more to send...
  
   services begin between Australia and the USA
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
  .
• 23 October – The ACTU
  Australian Council of Trade Unions
  The Australian Council of Trade Unions is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade union centre of 46 affiliated unions.-History:The ACTU was formed in 1927 as the "Australian Council of Trade Unions"...
  
   calls on the government to boycott trade with Japan
  Japan
  Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
  
  , following the Japanese invasion of China
  Second Sino-Japanese War
  The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
  
  .

Arts and literature

• 24 June – The Commonwealth Literature Censorship Board replaces the Book Censorship Advisory Committee, and temporarily lifts the ban on Ulysses
  Ulysses (novel)
  Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
  
  by James Joyce
  James Joyce
  James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
  
  .
• Sunbaker
  Sunbaker
  Sunbaker is a 1937 photograph by Australian modernist photographer Max Dupain. The black-and-white photograph depicts the head and shoulders of a man lying on the beach, taken from a low angle...
  
  by photographer Max Dupain
  Max Dupain
  Maxwell Spencer Dupain AC was a renowned Australian modernist photographer.-Early life:Dupain received his first camera as a gift in 1924, spurring his interest in photography He later joined the Photographic Society of NSW, and when he left school, he worked for Cecil Bostock in Sydney.-Early...
  
  

Sport

• 3 March – Captained by Don Bradman, Australia defeats England in the Fifth Test
  English cricket team in Australia in 1936-37
  The England cricket team toured Australia in the 1936-37 season to play a five-match Test series against Australia for The Ashes. The tour was organised by the Marylebone Cricket Club and matches outside the Tests were played under the MCC name....
  
   at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
  Melbourne Cricket Ground
  The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
  
  , retaining The Ashes
  The Ashes
  The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
  
  .
• 25 September – Geelong
  Geelong Football Club
  The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed The Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club, named after and based in the city of Geelong, playing in the Australian Football League . The club has been the VFL/AFL premiers nine times, with a record equalling 3 in the AFL era. Geelong has also...
  
   become premiers of the 1937 VFL season
  1937 VFL season
  Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1937.-Premiership season:In 1937, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus one substitute player, known as the 19th man...
  
  , defeating Collingwood
  Collingwood Football Club
  The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
  
   18.14 (122) to 12.18 (90).
• 19 November – Hubert Opperman
  Hubert Opperman
  Sir Hubert Ferdinand Opperman, OBE , referred to as Oppy by Australian and French crowds, was an Australian cyclist and politician, whose endurance cycling feats in the 1920s and 1930s earned him international acclaim....
  
   completes an epic bicycle ride from Fremantle, Western Australia
  Fremantle, Western Australia
  Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...
  
   to Sydney
  Sydney
  Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
  
  , taking 13 days, 10 hours and 11 minutes.

Births

• 16 January – Lorraine Bayly
  Lorraine Bayly
  Lorraine Daphne Bayly AM is an Australian actress.She is best known to television audiences for her portrayal of Grace Sullivan, the dignified, warm-hearted mother figure in the drama series The Sullivans 1976-1979, dealing with life for an ordinary Australian family during the Second World...
  
  , actor
• 21 January
  • Peter Gallagher (d. 2003), rugby league footballer
  • Michael Beahan
    Michael Beahan
    Michael Eamon Beahan, AM was the 19th President of the Australian Senate, holding that position from 1 February 1994 to 20 August 1996...
    
    , Labor Senator for Western Australia
• 25 January – John Watson
  John Watson (Australian politician)
  John Odin Wentworth Watson is an Australian politician. He was a Liberal member of the Australian Senate from 1978 to 2008, representing the state of Tasmania...
  
  , Liberal Senator for Tasmania
• 4 February – John Devitt
  John Devitt
  John Thomas Devitt was an Australian sprint freestyle swimmer of the 1960s, who won a gold medal in the 100 m freestyle at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. He won in controversial circumstances, being awarded the gold medal despite the timekeepers recording a slower time than the silver medallist...
  
  , Olympic swimmer
• 19 February
  • Lee Harding
    Lee Harding (writer)
    Lee John Harding is an Australian freelance photographer, who became a writer of science fiction novels and short stories.-Science fiction writing:...
    
    , science fiction writer
  • Colin Ridgway, NFL American footballer (d. 1993)
• 21 February – Ron Clarke
  Ron Clarke
  Ronald William "Ron" Clarke, MBE is a former Australian athlete, writer, and current Mayor of the Gold Coast. He is one of the best known middle and long distance runners in the 1960s, notable for setting seventeen world records.- Early life and family :He attended Melbourne High School...
  
  , Olympic athlete
• 3 March – Kevin O'Halloran
  Kevin O'Halloran
  Kevin O'Halloran was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1950s, who won a gold medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. The first Western Australian to win Olympic gold, O'Halloran learnt to swim in his home town of Katanning...
  
  , Olympic swimmer
• 7 April – Louise Faulkner
  Louise and Charmian Faulkner disappearance
  Louise Yvonne Faulkner and Charmian Christabel Alexis Faulkner were a mother and daughter who disappeared without a trace from outside their residence at 39 Acland St, St Kilda, Victoria, Australia in 1980...
  
  , missing woman
• 19 April – Lindsay Fox
  Lindsay Fox
  Lindsay Edward Fox AC is an Australian businessman. As of 2009, he was the 10th richest person in Australia, with a net worth of around 1.5 billion . He is best known as the founder and chairman of his family-owned trucking and logistics company, Linfox.- Early life :Lindsay Fox was brought up in...
  
  , businessman
• 27 May – Peter Pinne
  Peter Pinne
  Peter Pinne is an Australian-born writer and composer.Pinne started working as a television executive for the Reg Grundy organisation. Firstly, as Head of Production from 1980, later rising to become a Senior Vice President of the company. During this period, he worked on numerous shows including...
  
  , writer and composer
• 1 June – Colleen McCullough
  Colleen McCullough
  Colleen McCullough-Robinson, , is an internationally acclaimed Australian author.-Life:McCullough was born in Wellington, in outback central west New South Wales, in 1937 to James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved...
  
  , novelist
• 11 June – Robin Warren
  Robin Warren
  John Robin Warren AC is an Australian pathologist, Nobel Laureate and researcher who is credited with the 1979 re-discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, together with Barry Marshall.- Life and career :...
  
  , Nobel Prize-winning pathologist
• 26 July
  • Alan Cadman
    Alan Cadman
    Alan Glyndwr Cadman, AM , Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from 18 May 1974 to 17 October 2007, representing the Division of Mitchell, New South Wales....
    
    , politician
  • Guy Green, Governor of Tasmania (1995–2003)
• 28 August – Tony Marchant, Olympic track cyclist
• 1 September – Ian Callinan
  Ian Callinan
  Ian David Francis Callinan, AC, QC is a former Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.-Education:...
  
  , High Court judge
• 4 September – Dawn Fraser
  Dawn Fraser
  Dawn Fraser AO, MBE is an Australian champion swimmer. She is one of only two swimmers to win the same Olympic event three times – in her case the 100 meters freestyle....
  
  , Olympic swimmer
• 17 September – Gary Chapman
  Gary Chapman (swimmer)
  Gary Arthur Chapman was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1950s who won a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics...
  
  , Olympic swimmer
• 18 September – Barry Muir
  Barry Muir
  Barry Muir is an Australian former rugby league footballer and coach. An Australian and Queensland representative halfback, he played in twenty-two Tests between 1959 and 1964, as captain on two occasions...
  
  , rugby league footballer
• 3 October – John Hodges
  John Hodges (Australian politician)
  John Charles Hodges is a former Australian politician. He was born in Brisbane, Queensland and was a pharmacist before entering the Parliament of Australia...
  
  , Minister for Immigration (1982–1983)
• 10 October – Bruce Devlin
  Bruce Devlin
  Bruce William Devlin is an Australian professional golfer, sportscaster and golf course designer.Devlin was born in Armidale, Australia. He turned pro in 1961 and joined the PGA Tour in 1962 after an amateur career in Australia which included a win at the Australian Amateur in 1959...
  
  , golfer
• 21 November – John Kerin
  John Kerin
  John Charles Kerin, AM is an Australian economist and former Australian Labor Party politician.-Career in politics:...
  
  , politician
• 12 December
  • Michael Jeffery
    Michael Jeffery
    Major General Philip Michael Jeffery AC, CVO, MC was the 24th Governor-General of Australia , the first Australian career soldier to be appointed governor-general...
    
    , Governor-General of Australia
  • Judy Tegart
    Judy Tegart
    Judy Tegart Dalton is a retired professional Australian tennis player who won nine Grand Slam doubles titles. She won at least one women's doubles title at each Grand Slam tournament, a "Career Grand Slam". Five of her doubles titles were in partnership with Margaret Court...
    
    , tennis player
• 17 December – Kerry Packer
  Kerry Packer
  Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer, AC was an Australian media tycoon. The son of Sir Frank Packer and Gretel Bullmore, the Packer family company owned controlling interest in both the Nine television network and leading Australian publishing company Australian Consolidated Press, which were later...
  
  , businessman (d. 2005)

Deaths

• 14 February – 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...
  
   (b. 1876), architect of Canberra
  Canberra
  Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
  
   (died in India)
• 18 March – Walter Wilson Froggatt
  Walter Wilson Froggatt
  Walter Wilson Froggatt was an Australian economic entomologist.-Early life:Froggatt was born in Melbourne, Victoria, the son of George Wilson Froggatt, an English architect, and his wife Caroline, daughter of Giacomo Chiosso, who came from a noble Italian family...
  
   (b. 1858), geologist and economic entomologist
• 9 June – Charles Chewings
  Charles Chewings
  Charles Chewings was an Australian geologist and anthropologist.-Early life:Charles Chewings was born at Woorkongoree station, near Burra, South Australia, the third son of John Chewings, pastoralist, and his wife Sarah, née Wall. He was educated by a tutor and at Prince Alfred College, Adelaide...
  
   (b. 1859), geologist and anthropologist
• 10 July – Thomas Brentnall
  Thomas Brentnall
  Thomas Brentnall was a chartered English born Australian accountant and musician.-Early life and background:Brentnall was born on 30 December 1846 at Escomb, County Durham, England, son of Joseph Edmund Brentnall, a chemist, and his wife Mary Ann, née Strutt. The family lived at Eston, Yorkshire,...
  
   (b. 1846), accountant and musician
• 22 July – Ted McDonald
  Ted McDonald
  Edgar Arthur "Ted" McDonald was a cricketer who played for Tasmania, Victoria, Lancashire and Australia, as well as being an Australian rules footballer who played with Launceston Football Club, Essendon Football Club, and Fitzroy Football Club.A very fast bowler with the...
  
   (b. 1891), cricketer and Australian Rules footballer (Essendon, Fitzroy)
• 28 July – Sir George Hyde (b. 1877), head of the Royal Australian Navy
• 14 August – Bruce Smith
  Bruce Smith (Australian politician)
  Arthur Bruce Smith KC was a long serving Australian politician and leading political opponent of the White Australia policy.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1851), politician
• 28 August – George Prendergast
  George Prendergast
  George Michael Prendergast , Australian politician, was the 28th Premier of Victoria. He was born to Irish emigrant parents in Adelaide, but he grew up in Stawell in the Wimmera district of Victoria...
  
   (b. 1854), Premier of Victoria (1924)
• 28 September – William Ramsay Smith
  William Ramsay Smith
  William Ramsay Smith was an Australian anthropologist and pathologist.-Early life:Smith was born in King Edward, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of William Smith and his wife Mary née MacDonald . W. R...
  
   (b. 1859), anthropologist
• 2 October – Sir Granville Ryrie
  Granville Ryrie
  Major General Sir Granville de Laune Ryrie KCMG, CB, VD was an Australian soldier and politician who served in the Second Boer War and the First World War.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1865), soldier
• 4 November – Alfred Walter Campbell
  Alfred Walter Campbell
  -Further reading:...
  
   (b. 1868), neurologist
• 6 November – William Moore
  William Moore (critic)
  William George Moore was an Australian art and dramatic critic.Moore was born at Sandurst , the son of Thompson Moore one time a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly...
  
   (b. 1868), art and drama critic
• 17 November – Jack Worrall
  Jack Worrall
  John "Jack" Worrall was an Australian rules footballer for Fitzroy in the VFA and a test cricketer, a coach of both sports and a sporting journalist....
  
   (b. 1860), cricketer and Australian Rules footballer
• 19 November – Rayner Hoff
  Rayner Hoff
  Rayner Hoff was a sculptor who worked in Australia.Born on the Isle of Man, Hoff was the son of a stone and wood carver of Dutch descent. He began helping his father on architectural commissions at a very young age and briefly attended the Nottingham School of Art where he studied drawing, design,...
  
   (b. 1894), sculptor
• 27 November – Walter Howchin
  Walter Howchin
  Walter Howchin was a geologist who lectured in mineralogy and palaeontology at the former Adelaide School of Mines and Adelaide University; he won the Clarke Medal in 1907.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1845), geologist
• 11 December – Godfrey Irving
  Godfrey Irving
  Major General Godfrey George Howy Irving was an Australian Army Major General in World War I.- Early life and career :...
  
   (b. 1867), soldier and Chief of the General Staff (1915)
• 16 December – Sir Murray Bourchier
  Murray William James Bourchier
  Brigadier Sir Murray William James Bourchier CMG DSO VD MLA was an Australian soldier and former Deputy Premier of Victoria from April 1935 until June 1936.-Early life:...
  
  (b. 1881), soldier and Deputy Premier of Victoria