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1921 in Australia

overview of Australia-related events during the year of 1921

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ4561069 ↗
Source-derived summary

The following lists events that happened during 1921 in Australia.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V

Governor-General – Henry Forster

Prime Minister – Billy Hughes

Chief Justice – Adrian Knox

State premiers

Premier of New South Wales – John Storey (until 5 October), then James Dooley (from 10 October until 20 December), then George Fuller (for 7 hours on 20 December), then James Dooley

Premier of Queensland – Ted Theodore

Premier of South Australia – Henry Barwell

Premier of Tasmania – Walter Lee

Premier of Victoria – Harry Lawson

Premier of Western Australia – James Mitchell

State governors

Governor of New South Wales – Sir Walter Davidson

Governor of Queensland – Sir Matthew Nathan

Governor of South Australia – Sir William Weigall

Governor of Tasmania – Sir William Allardyce

Governor of Victoria – George Rous, 3rd Earl of Stradbroke (from 21 February)

Governor of Western Australia – Sir Francis Newdegate

Events

March – Group Settlement Scheme begins at Manjimup, Western Australia.

7 March – The Commonwealth Department of Health is formed.

12 March – Edith Cowan becomes the first female parliamentarian in Australia, when she is elected to the Western Australian Legislative Council.

22 March – New South Wales MP Percy Brookfield is shot and killed when he tackles a crazed gunman at the train station in Riverton, South Australia.

31 March – The Royal Australian Air Force is established.

9 May – Australia assumes responsibility for administration of the Territory of New Guinea, following a League of Nations mandate divesting Germany of its colonies as required by the Treaty of Versailles.

30 August – A general election is held in Victoria. Harry Lawson of the Nationalist Party is returned as premier, although in a minority government.

26 October – The first group of Barnardo's Boys arrived in Sydney.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1921 in Australia” as overview of Australia-related events during the year of 1921. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Australia, overview and Australia-related.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1921—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Australia, overview and Australia-related providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “1921 in Australia”, the useful work is to connect “overview of Australia-related events during the year of 1921” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4561069. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1921.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow 1921 in Australia primary sources, 1921 in Australia archive and Australia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1921 in Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.