1803 in Australia

• Monarch - George III

Governors of the Australian colonies:

• Governor of New South Wales – Captain Philip King

• 14 January – Lieut-Col David Collins is commissioned in England to found a new settlement on Bass Strait, preferably at Port Phillip.
• 5 March – George Howe publishes the first issue of the weekly The Sydney Gazette and The New South Wales Advertiser, Australia's first newspaper.
• 19 April - Governor King proclaims toleration for Catholics and allows Fr James Dixon to say mass for Irish convicts.[https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/625538 Proclamation], Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 24 Apr 1803{{cite journal |last1=Franklin |first1=James |author-link=James Franklin (philosopher) |date=2021 |title=Sydney 1803: When Catholics were tolerated and Freemasons banned |url=http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/sydney1803.pdf |journal=Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society |volume=107 |issue=2 |pages=135–155 |doi= |access-date=27 Dec 2021}}
• 14 May - Illegal Masonic meeting held in Sydney and all participants arrested.
• 25 November - William James Hobart Thorne is the first white child born in Victoria{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9220538 |title=The Late Robert Thorne |newspaper=The Mercury (Hobart) |volume=LIV |issue=6,116 |location=Tasmania, Australia |date=27 September 1889 |accessdate=2 November 2019 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}} when he is born at Port Phillip, in what was then part of New South Wales but later became Victoria.{{cite news|url=https://www.theage.com.au/national/finding-settlements-first-son-20031116-gdwqyt.html |newspaper=The Age |title=Finding Settlements First Son |date=16 November 2003 |access-date=7 November 2019}} He dies on 2 July 1872.
• 27 December – Convict William Buckley escapes from Sullivan Bay, Victoria. He lives with the Wautharong Aboriginal people for 32 years.
• 26 June – John Macarthur writes the [http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/history_nation/agriculture/life/macarthurs/ Statement of Improvement and Progression of Fine Woolled Sheep in New South Wales.]

• January–February – Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbins and NSW Surveyor General Charles Grimes survey Port Phillip in {{HMS|Cumberland|1803|6}}
• 2 February – Charles Grimes discovered the Yarra River.
• 9 June – {{HMS|Investigator|1798|2}} arrives in Port Jackson after circumnavigating Australia. On the voyage Matthew Flinders charted the coast and Robert Brown made an extensive collection of the flora of Australia.
• 11 September – John Bowen with a party of forty-eight found the first settlement in Van Diemen's Land near the Derwent River.
• 9 October – David Collins, on {{HMS|Calcutta|1795|6}} and Ocean, establishes the short-lived settlement at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip

• 1 January – Daniel Egan, politician (died 1870)

• 26 August – Joseph Luker, police officer (born {{circa|1765}})
• 16 September – Nicholas Baudin, French explorer (born 1754)
• 17 November – William Balmain, First Fleet surgeon (born 1762)

{{Reflist}}

{{Years in Australia}}

{{Oceania topic|1803 in|countries_only=yes}}

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Australia

Category:Years of the 19th century in Australia