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1816 in Australia

overview of Australia-related events during the year of 1816

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ4554050 ↗
Source-derived summary

The following lists events that happened during 1816 in Australia.

Incumbents

Monarch - George III

Governors

Governors of the Australian colonies:

Governor of New South Wales – Lachlan Macquarie

Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land – Major Thomas Davey

Events

1 January – The first public hospital, the Rum Hospital, is opened.

30 March – Francis Greenway is appointed as the government's Civil Architect.

1 June – Andrew Bent starts regular publication of the Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter.

2 December – John Oxley allots the first land grants in the Illawarra district.

The Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney is opened. The overall structure and key elements of the garden were designed by Charles Moore and Joseph Maiden, and various other elements designed and built under the supervision of Allan Cunningham, Richard Cunningham, and Carrick Chambers. The garden is the oldest scientific institution in Australia.

Births

27 February – William Nicholson, 3rd Premier of Victoria (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1865)

12 April – Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, 8th Premier of Victoria (born in the United Kingdom) (d.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1816 in Australia” as overview of Australia-related events during the year of 1816. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Australia, overview and Australia-related.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1816, 1865—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 “1816 in Australia”, the useful work is to connect “overview of Australia-related events during the year of 1816” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4554050. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1816 and 1865.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1816 in Australia”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1816 in Australia primary sources, 1816 in Australia archive and Australia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1816 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.