-
Shipping to New Holland
In 1699 the British Geographical Society financed some expeditions of scientific-economic interest towards New Holland, approving a project by William Dampier who had already explored the north-western part of the country. The outcome of the mission, however, was disastrous, so much so that the English abandoned any plan to colonize Australia for about seventy years. -
James Cook
On 28 April 1770, James Cook landed in Botany Bay, a few kilometers from present-day Sydney, taking possession of the entire eastern coast in the name of the British Crown and giving it the name of New South Wales. Driven by Cook's discoveries, England began to initiate the first plans for Australia. -
Penal Colonies
In 1786 the English government approved the establishment of a penal colony in Botany Bay, in which to lock up prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment or particularly dangerous to society. Convicts at Botany Bay were assigned to forced labor to extract the first mineral resources discovered and which were then sent to Britain. -
Arthur Phillip
In 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip arrived in Australia, recently appointed governor of the colony, with almost absolute powers. Having arrived in Botany Bay on 9 January, 26 January (now celebrated as Australia Day) inaugurated Sydney, in honor of Thomas Townshend. The life of the new colony encountered many difficulties, essentially due to the hostility of the natural environment as well as the Aboriginal population who managed to block the creation of farms on the banks of the Hawkesbury River. -
Rum trade
In 1792, the New South Wales Corps was established in Great Britain to monitor convicts and defend colonial territory. The Departments soon became a threat to the authority of the various governors, given that they often became protagonists of episodes of rebellion against them and gave rise to a clandestine rum trade. -
G.B.
In 1827, Great Britain gained control of the entire country. -
New colonies
New colonies were born such as that of Adelaide, founded in July 1837 on the basis of a project by Edward Gibbon Wakefield who aimed at the creation of self-sufficient communities based on agricultural work and united by common values such as family, religion and market freedom. Wakefield's project, despite the support of the religious communities, failed because it did not take into account either the particular conditions of the land or the presence of Aboriginal people. -
New constitutions
1860 new constitutions were launched with a council of ministers controlled by the lower house elected with universal male suffrage, also and above all following the rebellion in the mining camps of Eureka near Ballarat, the greatest example of Australian "revolution". Two trends immediately began to emerge within society: one constituted by the rapidly growing urban population and push towards modernity while the large breeders and farmers of the interior took more conservative positions. -
Second half of the 19th century
The Australian population experienced a real demographic boom following the discovery of gold, which characterized the entire second half of the 19th century.
Until 1889 the development of common institutions between the various Australian colonies was prevented by the strong rivalries that existed. In that period, the country had experienced its first industrialization as well as extensive urbanization, so much so that Sydney and Melbourne were among the largest cities on the planet. -
Indipendence
In 1897 the first constituent assembly was elected which passed the Constitution; it organized the colonies into a federation.
During 1900 the Constitution was approved with a series of referendums in the various colonies and came into force on 1 January 1901, after ratification by the English Parliament.Canberra was founded to be the capital, built from scratch halfway between the two metropolises Sydney and Melbourne, within an autonomous state.