1831 in Australia

← 1830 1829 1828 1831 in Australia → 1832 1833 1834
Decades:	1810s 1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s
See also:	Other events of 1831 Timeline of Australian history

The following lists events that happened during 1831 in Australia.

The year of the Ripon Land Grant, which attracted many settlers to Australia.

Incumbents

• Monarch - William IV

Governors

Governors of the Australian colonies:

• Governor of New South Wales - Ralph Darling (to 23 October).
• Governor of New South Wales - Major-General Sir Richard Bourke (from 23 October).
• Lieutenant-Governor of Tasmania - Colonel George Arthur
• Lieutenant-Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony - Captain James Stirling

Events

• 4 March - James Stirling commissioned as Lieutenant-Governor of Western Australia, rectifying the absence of a legal instrument providing the authority detailed in Stirling's Instructions of 30 December 1828.
• 14 March - The Surprise, the first paddle steamer built in Australia, was launched in Sydney.
• 18 April - The Sydney daily newspaper and Australia's oldest newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald is first published.
• The Ripon Land Regulation Act provides land grants.

Arts and literature

• Australia's first novel, Quintus Servinton: A Tale founded upon Incidents of Real Occurrence was written and published in Tasmania . It was written by the convicted English forger Henry Savery and published anonymously.

Births

• Lewis Bernays
• James Boucaut
• William John Clarke
• William Bede Dalley
• John Darling
• Alfred Felton
• Walter Russell Hall
• Laurence Halloran
• Robert Herbert
• Adelaide Ironside
• Martin Howy Irving
• Patrick Jennings
• George Kerferd
• Duncan McIntyre
• Thomas Petrie
• Frederick Pottinger
• Henry Gyles Turner

Deaths

• 22 December – Charles Fraser, botanist (b. 1788)
• Collet Barker
• John Hayes