1845 in Australia
The following lists events that happened during 1845 in Australia.
Incumbents
Governors
Governors of the Australian colonies:- Governor of New South Wales – Sir George Gipps
- Governor of South Australia – Sir George Grey, then Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Holt Robe
- Governor of Tasmania – Sir John Eardley-Wilmot
- Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony – John Hutt.
Events
- 12 March – St John the Baptist Church in Reid Canberra is consecrated.
- 4 August – The ship Cataraqui is wrecked off the coast of Tasmania, the 406 people on board drown.
- 9 May – F. H. Faulding & Co pharmaceutical company founded in Adelaide, Australia.
- 20 July – Charles Sturt enters the Simpson Desert in central Australia.
- 21 June – News of the discovery of a rich body of copper ore at Burra, South Australia is published in Adelaide newspapers.
- 17 December – Ludwig Leichhardt arrives at Port Essington, Northern Territory, after an overland journey of 4800 km from Jimbour on the Darling Downs.
- Undated – Port Augusta War ends
- Undated – An unknown number of Indigenous Australians are killed in the Darkey Flat massacre.
- Wool export in Australia – 24 million pounds.
- Hobart Synagogue building is completed in Hobart, Tasmania.
Arts and literature
True Love, or an Interlude Interrupted, play and comic farce is written.The Beautiful Squatter, a poem by Australian poet Charles Harpur is published.- South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register is first published, 5 July 1845.
Births
- 12 January – Walter Howchin, geologist
- 11 February – John Chanter, New South Wales politician
- 16 February – Maybanke Anderson, suffragette and reformer
- 17 February – Percival Ball, sculptor
- 25 February – Sir George Reid, 4th Prime Minister of Australia and 12th Premier of New South Wales
- 20 March – Victor Child Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey, 17th Governor of New South Wales
- 3 April – William Farrer, agronomist
- 7 April – Margaret McLean, Victorian temperance and women's rights advocate
- 15 April – Dave Gregory, cricketer
- 16 June – William Charles Kernot, engineer
- 21 June
- * Henry Brockman, Western Australian politician
- * Sir Samuel Griffith, 9th Premier of Queensland and 1st Chief Justice of Australia
- 10 September – Jessie Rooke, Tasmanian suffragette and temperance
- 19 October – Frank Hann, pastoralist and explorer
- 21 October – Ernest Favenc, explorer, journalist and author
- 15 December – Thomas Skene, Victorian politician
- 30 December – Thomas Edward Spencer, writer
- John and Sarah Makin - convicted of murders born.
- John William Lindt, ethnographic photographer and early photojournalist
- Brettena Smyth, women's rights activist born in Kyneton, Victoria.
Deaths
- 28 June – John Gilbert, English naturalist and explorer, killed during a violent altercation at Mitchell River (Queensland)
- 5 August – John Blaxland, New South Wales politician and explorer
- Undated – John Kinchela, barrister, politician and judge