1844 in Australia

Incumbents

• Monarch - Victoria

Governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Sir George Gipps
• Governor of South Australia – Sir George Grey
• Governor of Tasmania – Sir John Eardley-Wilmot
• Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony – John Hutt.

Events

• 1 January – Australia's first ringing peal rang from the bells of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
• February – public ferry service commences between Balmain East ferry wharf and the Australian Gas Light Company wharf at Millers Point, Sydney.
• 6 April – John Gavin is the first European settler to be legally executed in Western Australia. Gavin, a fifteen-year-old apprentice, was found guilty of the murder of his employer's son, George Pollard.
• 12 September – The Royal Society of Tasmania was formed. It was the first branch of the Society established outside Britain.
• 29 September – Norfolk Island was transferred from the Colony of New South Wales to the Colony of Van Diemen's Land
• Undated – Port Augusta War
• Undated – An unknown number of Indigenous Australians are murdered by Angus McMillan's men at Maffra as part of a series of mass murders of Gunai Kurnai people known as the Gippsland massacres.
• Undated – Aboriginal Orphans Act 1844, is enacted in South Australia, whereby the Protectors of Aborigines was made legal guardian of "every half-caste and other unprotected Aboriginal child whose parents are dead or unknown".
• Undated – Aborigines' Evidence Act 1844 permitting Indigenous South Australians to give unsworn evidence in Court.
• Undated – Aboriginal Girls Protection Act 1844, is enacted in Western Australia to prevent Aboriginal girls from leaving or running away from school or their employed service.
• Undated – Wellington Convict and Mission Site, convict agricultural station and Aboriginal mission closed.
• Undated – The permanent first crossing of the Yarra River opens at the site of the now Princes Bridge in Melbourne.

Exploration and settlement

• August – Charles Sturt explores the Stony Desert, fails to establish existence of an inland sea.
• 1 October – Ludwig Leichhardt leads expedition starting from Jimbour on the Darling Downs to Port Essington, Northern Territory, arriving in December 1845.

Science and technology

• Penfolds winery is established in Adelaide by Christopher Rawson Penfold & Mary Penfold.
• The Wheal Watkins lead and silver mine commences operations in Glen Osmond, South Australia.

Arts and literature

• A painting of the Cascades Female Factory in Van Diemen's Land is completed by painter, John Skinner Prout.
• Louisa Anne Meredith publishes her book, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, an account of her first 11 years in Australia.

Births

• 3 January – Michael Rush, champion rower
• 24 January – Alexander Paterson, Queensland politician
• 31 January – James McColl, Victorian politician
• 7 February – Joseph Brown, Victorian politician
• 8 February – John McGarvie Smith, metallurgist, bacteriologist and benefactor
• 26 February – Thomas Glassey, 1st Queensland Opposition Leader
• 16 March – Thomas Blackburn, priest and entomologist
• 28 March – Emma Howson, opera singer and actress
• 17 March – Sir Henry Briggs, Western Australian politician
• 6 April
• * Francis Bertie Boyce, clergyman and social reformer
• * Sir William Lyne, 13th Premier of New South Wales
• 9 May – Thomas Macdonald-Paterson, Queensland politician
• 11 May – Watkin Wynne, journalist, councillor and newspaper owner
• 16 May – Sir John Madden, 4th Chief Justice of Victoria
• 28 June – John Boyle O'Reilly, Irish poet, journalist and escapee convict
• 21 August – Carl Feilberg, journalist, newspaper editor and human rights activist
• 26 August – J. C. Williamson, actor
• 27 August – Rosina Palmer, opera singer
• 30 August – William Tietkens, explorer and naturalist
• 2 September – James Macfarlane, Tasmanian politician
• 10 September – Abel Hoadley, businessman and confectioner
• 26 September – Charles Strong, preacher and minister
• 29 September – Edward Pulsford, New South Wales politician
• 14 October – Sir John See, 14th Premier of New South Wales
• 15 October – John Gavan Duffy, Victorian politician
• 21 October – Joseph William Sutton, engineer, shipbuilder, inventor
• 22 October – Margaret Forrest, botanical collector
• 13 November – Andrew Harper, biblical scholar and teacher
• 21 November – Ada Cambridge, writer and poet
• 14 December – Maggie Oliver, actor and comedian
• 5 December – Sir Charles Mackellar, New South Wales politician and surgeon
• Unknown – William Sawers, New South Wales politician
• Unknown – William McMinn, surveyor and architect,
• Unknown – Mary Jane Cain, community leader and Gomeroi woman
• Unknown – Alfred James Daplyn, painter
• Unknown – Amy Jane Best, schoolmistress

Deaths

• 13 February – John Knatchbull, murderer, is publicly executed in Sydney
• 30 April – George Jones, bushranger is publicly executed in Tasmania
• 19 May – Conrad Theodore Knowles, actor and theatre manager
• 29 June – Sir John Jamison, New South Wales politician, physician and pastoralist
• 8 July – John Terry, miller and farmer
• 14 September – Prosper de Mestre, businessman and merchant
• 27 September – Sir James Dowling, 2nd Chief Justice of New South Wales
• 22 October – John Charles Darke, explorer, died after being speared
• Undated – Anna Josepha King, settler and First Lady of New South Wales