1788 in Australia

The following lists events that happened during 1788 in Australia.

← 1787 1786 1785 1788 in Australia → 1789 1790 1791
Decades:	1780s 1790s 1800s
See also:	Other events of 1788 Timeline of Australian history

Leaders

• Monarch - George III
• Governor of New South Wales – Captain Arthur Phillip
• Governor of Norfolk Island – Philip Gidley King
• Commanding officer of the colony's marine presence – Major Robert Ross

Events

• 18 January – HMS Supply of the First Fleet arrives in Botany Bay.
• 26 January – The First Fleet lands in Port Jackson, Australia from Portsmouth, England, and establishes the English penal colony of New South Wales – the first European settlement in Australia.[1]
• 6 February – The first female convicts arrive at Port Jackson.[1]
• 9 February – The colony of New South Wales is formally proclaimed. Phillip is sworn in as Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief.[1]
• 18 February – Lord Howe Island is discovered by Henry Lidgbird Ball on HMS Supply.[2]
• 27 February – A convict, Thomas Barrett, receives the first death sentence in the colony.[1]
• 6 March – Philip Gidley King is sent from the Port Jackson colony to settle Norfolk Island with a party of fifteen convicts and seven men.[1]
• 15 April – Phillip King explores northwards to Manly, and sights the Blue Mountains.[1]
• 23 April – Governor Phillip explores the area now known as Parramatta, west of Sydney.[1]
• 29 May – Two convicts are killed by Aboriginals at Rushcutters Bay; Phillip leads a punitive attack on the Aborigines on 31 May.[1]
• 5 June – All the settlement's cattle brought from Cape Town escape; they are not recaptured until November 1795.[1]
• 21 July – First sitting of the Court of Civil Jurisdiction.
• September – Sydney's first road, from the Governor's House to Dawes Point, is completed.
• October – Due to poor conditions, scurvy breaks out. Phillip orders strict rationing and sends HMS Sirius to Cape Town for supplies.
• 2 November – A second settlement is established at Rose Hill, which will later become Parramatta.[1]

Births

• 4 January – Johann Menge, South Australian explorer and geologist (d. 1852)
• 16 January – Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur, New South Wales politician and businessman (d. 1861)
• 17 April – Charles Hervey Bagot, South Australian pastoralist, mine owner and parliamentarian (d. 1880)
• 22 May – William Broughton, bishop (d. 1853)[3]
• 2 August – Charles Hardwicke, Tasmanian explorer (d. 1880)
• 24 August – Osmond Gilles, South Australian colonial treasurer (d. 1866)
• 24 October – John Burdett Wittenoom, Swan River Colony clergyman (d. 1855)
• date unknown
  • Charles Fraser, botanist (d. 1831)
  • Frederick Goulburn, first Colonial Secretary of New South Wales (d. 1837)
  • Frederick Irwin, acting Governor of Western Australia (d. 1860)
  • John Ovens, explorer (d. 1825)
  • Thomas Pamphlett, convict and castaway (d. 1838)
  • Henry Willey Reveley, Swan River Colony civil engineer (d. 1875)
  • Edward Buckley Wynyard, New South Wales politician (d. 1864)

Deaths

• 5 June – Ruth Bowyer, convict (b. c. 1761)

References

1. The World Upside Down – Australia 1788–1930, National Library of Australia.
2. Anderson, Atholl (2003). "Investigating early settlement on Lord Howe Island". Australian Archaeology.
3. Cable, K. J. "Broughton, William Grant (1788–1853)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 26 June 2018.

Further reading

• Barker, Anthony (1996). What Happened When. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-86373-986-3.