Incumbents

• Monarch
  Monarchy in Australia
  The Monarchy of Australia is a form of government in which a hereditary monarch is the sovereign of Australia. The monarchy is a constitutional one modelled on the Westminster style of parliamentary government, incorporating features unique to the Constitution of Australia.The present monarch is...
  
   – King George V
  George V of the United Kingdom
  George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
  
  
• Governor-General
  Governor-General of Australia
  The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
  
   – Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster of Lepe (until 8 October) then John Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven
  John Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven
  John Lawrence Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven, GCMG, DSO, PC, JP, DL , known as Sir John Baird, Bt, between 1920 and 1925 and as The Lord Stonehaven between 1925 and 1928, was a British Conservative politician, who served as a Member of Parliament, government minister, and was later the eighth...
  
  
• Prime Minister
  Prime Minister of Australia
  The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
  
   – Andrew Fisher
  Andrew Fisher
  Andrew Fisher was an Australian politician who served as the fifth Prime Minister on three separate occasions. Fisher's 1910-13 Labor ministry completed a vast legislative programme which made him, along with Protectionist Alfred Deakin, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation...
  
  

State premiers

• Premier of New South Wales – Jack Lang
  Jack Lang (Australian politician)
  John Thomas Lang , usually referred to as J.T. Lang during his career, and familiarly known as "Jack" and nicknamed "The Big Fella" was an Australian politician who was Premier of New South Wales for two terms...
  
  
• Premier of Queensland – William McCormack
  William McCormack
  William McCormack , was Premier of Queensland, Australia, from 1925 to 1929.He was born in Purnam, Queensland and died in Brisbane on 21 November 1947....
  
  
• Premier of South Australia – John Gunn
  John Gunn (Australian politician)
  John Gunn was the 29th Premier of South Australia.Gunn was born in Bendigo, Victoria, the second of nine children to a Scottish miner and his wife...
  
   (until 28 August), then Lionel Hill
  Lionel Hill
  Lionel Laughton Hill was the thirtieth Premier of South Australia.Born in Adelaide, South Australia but raised on a farm near Maitland, Hill left school aged 12 to work on the South Australian government railways, where he first became involved in the labour movement...
  
  
• Premier of Tasmania – Joseph Lyons
  Joseph Lyons
  Joseph Aloysius Lyons, CH was an Australian politician. He was Labor Premier of Tasmania from 1923 to 1928 and a Minister in the James Scullin government from 1929 until his resignation from the Labor Party in March 1931...
  
  
• Premier of Victoria – John Allan
  John Allan (Australian politician)
  John Allan , Australian politician, was the 29th Premier of Victoria. He was born near Lancefield, where his father was a farmer of Scottish origin, and educated at state schools. He took up wheat and dairy farming at Wyuna and was director of a butter factory at Kyabram...
  
  
• Premier of Western Australia
  Premier of Western Australia
  The Premier of Western Australia is the head of the executive government in the Australian State of Western Australia. The Premier has similar functions in Western Australia to those performed by the Prime Minister of Australia at the national level, subject to the different Constitutions...
  
   – Philip Collier
  Philip Collier
  Philip Collier was Premier of Western Australia for nine years, the longest ever term for an Australian Labor Party premier....
  
  

State governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Sir Dudley de Chair
  Dudley de Chair
  Admiral Sir Dudley Rawson Stratford de Chair, KCB, KCMG, KBE, MVO was a Naval Officer and Governor. De Chair joined the Royal Navy from the age of 16 and served in the Anglo-Egyptian War and later as an Admiral in the First World War. He was appointed as Governor of New South Wales in 1923...
  
  
• Governor of Queensland – none appointed
• Governor of South Australia – Sir Tom Bridges
• Governor of Tasmania – Sir James O'Grady
  James O'Grady
  Sir James O'Grady, KCMG was a trade unionist and Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was the first colonial governor appointed by the Labour Party from within its own ranks.- Early life :...
  
  
• Governor of Victoria – George Rous, 3rd Earl of Stradbroke
  George Rous, 3rd Earl of Stradbroke
  George Edward John Mowbray Rous, 3rd Earl of Stradbroke KCMG CB CVO CBE VD TD was a British noble and the 15th Governor of Victoria, Australia....
  
   (until 7 April), then Arthur Somers-Cocks, 6th Baron Somers
  Arthur Somers-Cocks, 6th Baron Somers
  Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Herbert Tennyson Somers-Cocks, 6th Baron Somers, KCMG, DSO, MC , son of Herbert Haldane Somers-Cocks by Blanche Margaret Standish Clogstoun...
  
   (from 28 June)
• Governor of Western Australia
  Governor of Western Australia
  The Governor of Western Australia is the representative in Western Australia of Australia's Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The Governor performs important constitutional, ceremonial and community functions, including:* presiding over the Executive Council;...
  
   – Sir William Campion
  William Campion
  Colonel Sir William Robert Campion KCMG, DSO, TD, DL was a British politician and Governor of Western Australia from 1924 to 1931....
  
  

Events

• 19 April – The High Court of Australia
  High Court of Australia
  The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
  
   finds in the case of Clyde Engineering Co Ltd v Cowburn
  Clyde Engineering Co Ltd v Cowburn
  Clyde Engineering Co Ltd v Cowburn 37 CLR 466 is a High Court of Australia case about inconsistency between a Commonwealth and a State law, which is dealt with in s 109 of the Australian Constitution...
  
  that the Forty-Four Hours Week Act 1925 (NSW) was incompatible with Commonwealth legislation.
• 3 September – The Canberra Times
  The Canberra Times
  The Canberra Times newspaper was founded in 1926 in Canberra, Australia by Arthur Shakespeare.It was the second paper to be printed in the city, the first being The Federal Capital Pioneer. The paper was sold to the Fairfax group in the 1960s by Arthur Shakespeare on the condition that it continue...
  
  is first published.
• 4 September – A federal referendum
  Australian referendum, 1926
  The 1926 Australian Referendum was held on 4 September 1926. It contained two referendum questions.* Industry and Commerce * Essential Services ...
  
   is held, containing two questions: Industry and Commerce
  Australian referendum, 1926 (Industry and Commerce)
  Constitution Alteration 1926 sought to extend the government's legislative powers with respect to corporations, and to give it the power to make laws with respect to trusts and combinations in restraint of trade, trade unions and employer associations...
  
   and Essential Services
  Australian referendum, 1926 (Essential Services)
  Constitution Alteration 1926 sought to give the government power to protect the public from any actual or probable interruption of essential services...
  
  . Neither question is passed.
• 13 September – Twenty-six people are killed in the Murulla railway accident.

• Helen Wayth wins the first Miss Australia Quest
  Miss Australia
  Miss Australia is the title for the winner of the Miss Australia Quest/Awards, which ran from 1954 until 2000, when the last Miss Australia was named....
  
  
• Ballerina Anna Pavlova tours Australia

Science and technology

• 22 June – The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is founded, the precursor to today's CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
  The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is the national government body for scientific research in Australia...
  
  ).

Sport

• 18 September – South Sydney Rabbitohs
  South Sydney Rabbitohs
  The South Sydney Rabbitohs are an Australian professional rugby league football team based in Redfern, a suburb of South-central Sydney, New South Wales. They participate in the National Rugby League premiership and are one of nine existing teams from the state capital...
  
   defeat University, becoming premiers of the New South Wales Rugby Football League season 1926
  New South Wales Rugby Football League season 1926
  The 1926 New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the nineteenth season of Sydney's top-level rugby league football club competition, Australia's first...
  
  .
• 25 September – Melbourne
  Melbourne Football Club
  The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....
  
   defeat Collingwood
  Collingwood Football Club
  The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
  
   17.17 (119) to 9.8 (62) at the VFL grand final
  AFL Grand Final
  The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League premiership champions for that year...
  
  , becoming premiers of the 1926 VFL season
  1926 VFL season
  Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1926.-Premiership season:In 1926, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume...
  
  .
• 2 November – Spearfelt wins the Melbourne Cup
  Melbourne Cup
  The Melbourne Cup is Australia's major Thoroughbred horse race. Marketed as "the race that stops a nation", it is a 3,200 metre race for three-year-olds and over. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races...
  
  .
• New South Wales wins the Sheffield Shield
  Pura Cup
  The Sheffield Shield is the domestic cricket competition of Australia. The tournament is contested between teams from the six states of Australia. Prior to the Shield being established, a number of intercolonial matches were played. The Shield, donated by Lord Sheffield, was first contested during...
  
  

Births

• 7 January – Joe Marston
  Joe Marston
  Joe Marston MBE was the first Australian to appear in a FA Cup Final when he turned out for Preston North End in their 1954 defeat to West Bromwich Albion.-Preston North End:...
  
  , soccer player
• 4 February – Dave Sands
  Dave Sands
  Dave Sands, born David Ritchie, was an Australian Aborigine boxer. He established himself as a leading contender for the World Middleweight Title, only to die prematurely in a motor vehicle accident at the age of 26....
  
  , boxer
• 6 February – Bruce Ruxton
  Bruce Ruxton
  Bruce Caryle Ruxton AM, OBE is an Australian ex-serviceman and former President of the Victorian Returned and Services League.-Early life:Ruxton grew up in Kew, Victoria...
  
  , former soldier and president of the RSL
• 8 February – Tony Street
  Tony Street
  Anthony Austin Street is a retired Australian politician and member of parliament.He is the son of Geoffrey Street, a former Australian Cabinet Minister and MP...
  
  , politician
• 16 February – Rayene Stewart Simpson
  Rayene Stewart Simpson
  Rayene Stewart "Ray" Simpson VC, DCM was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces.-Early life:Simpson was born in Chippendale, New South Wales and educated...
  
  , soldier and Victoria Cross recipient
• 6 March – Ray O'Connor
  Ray O'Connor
  Raymond James "Ray" O'Connor was the 22nd Premier of Western Australia.-Pre-political life:He was born in Perth and attended schools in towns of Narrogin and York, and St Patrick's Boys' School in Perth...
  
  , Premier of Western Australia (1982–1983)
• 15 March – Thelma Keane
  Thelma Keane
  Thelma "Thel" Keane was the Australian-born American wife of The Family Circus newspaper cartoonist, Bil Keane...
  
  , wife of cartoonist Bil Keane and inspiration for the "Mommy" character in The Family Circus
  The Family Circus
  The Family Circus is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and currently written, inked, and colored by his son, Jeff Keane. The strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the series, which was changed following objections from...
  
  (d. 2008)
• 2 April – Jack Brabham
  Jack Brabham
  Sir John Arthur "Jack" Brabham, AO, OBE is an Australian former racing driver who was Formula One champion in , and . He was a founder of the Brabham racing team and race car constructor that bore his name....
  
  , racing driver
• 11 May – Frank Thring
  Frank Thring
  Frank William Thring was an Australian character actor.-Early life:Thring was born in Melbourne and educated at the Melbourne Grammar School. His father, Frank W. Thring, was the head of Efftee Studios, in Melbourne, in the 1920s, and is said to be the inventor of the clapperboard...
  
  , actor (d. 1994)
• 25 June – Kep Enderby
  Kep Enderby
  Keppel Earl "Kep" Enderby QC is a former Australian politician and retired judge. Enderby was a member of the House of Representatives, representing the Australian Labor Party between 1970 and 1975, and became a senior cabinet minister in the Gough Whitlam government...
  
  , Esperantist and politician
• 4 July – Stuart Thomas Butler
  Stuart Thomas Butler
  Stuart Thomas Butler was an Australian nuclear physicist who served as Director of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission from 1977 until 1982, and was noted for his contributions to theoretical physics including stripping reactions, energy loss of particles in a plasma and atmospheric tides...
  
  , nuclear physicist (d. 1982)
• 12 July – Al Grassby
  Al Grassby
  Albert Jaime Grassby, AM , Australian politician, was Minister for Immigration in the Whitlam Labor government. He initiated sweeping reforms in immigration, human rights, and is often known as the father of Australian "multiculturalism".-Early life and state politics:Born Albert Grassby in...
  
  , politician, Minister for Immigration
• 31 July – Jack Pollard
  Jack Pollard
  Jack Ernest Pollard OAM was an Australian sports journalist, writer and cricket historian.-Early life:Born in Sydney, New South Wales on 31 July 1926, Pollard began his journalism career in 1943 as a copy boy at Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper...
  
  , sports writer and cricket historian (d. 2002)
• 5 August – Doug McClelland, politician
• 15 August — Ted Allsopp
  Ted Allsopp
  Edward James Allsopp was Australia's leading male race walker in the 1950s. He set his personal best in the men's 50 km in 1966....
  
  , race walker
• 8 September – Keith Adams
  Keith Adams (Australia)
  Keith Flexmore Adams , is an Australian adventurer and film-maker.In 1955, Adams produced an amateur film, Northern Safari, in which he, his wife Audrey, his sister Margaret and their fox terrier Tiger travelled in an old Buick from their home in Perth, Western Australia across the Gibson Desert to...
  
  , adventurer
• 18 September – Deirdre Jordan
  Deirdre Jordan
  Deirdre Frances Jordan, AC, MBE is an Australian academic and educator.Born in Loxton, South Australia, Australia on 18 September 1926 to Clement and Helena Jordan, she was educated at St Aloysius College in Adelaide, South Australia, and joined the Religious Sisters of Mercy when she was 19...
  
  , academic and educator
• 11 October – Neville Wran
  Neville Wran
  Neville Kenneth Wran, AC, CNZM, QC was the Premier of New South Wales from 1976 until 1986. He was National President of the Australian Labor Party from 1980 to 1986 and Chairman of both the Lionel Murphy Foundation and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation from 1986...
  
  , Premier of New South Wales (1976–1986)
• 20 October – Peter Durack
  Peter Durack
  Peter Drew Durack, QC was an Australian politician, representing the Liberal Party. He rose to become Attorney-General of Australia....
  
  , politician, Attorney-General
• 7 November – Joan Sutherland
  Joan Sutherland
  Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
  
  , opera singer
• 15 November – Ivor Greenwood
  Ivor Greenwood
  Ivor John Greenwood was an Australian politician and barrister.-Biography:Greenwood was born in North Melbourne and educated at Hartwell Central State School, Mont Albert Central State School, Scotch College and the University of Melbourne...
  
  , politician, Attorney-General (d. 1976)
• 26 November – Tom Hughes, politician, Attorney-General
• 31 December – Billy Snedden
  Billy Snedden
  Sir Billy Mackie Snedden, KCMG, QC was an Australian politician representing the Liberal Party. He was Leader of the Opposition at the 1974 federal election, failing to defeat the Labor incumbent Gough Whitlam.-Early life:...
  
  , politician, Leader of the Liberal Party (d. 1987)

Deaths

• 9 January – William Henry Warren
  William Henry Warren
  William Henry Warren was an Australian engineer and twice president of the Royal Society of New South Wales.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1852), engineer
• 12 January – Sir Austin Chapman
  Austin Chapman
  Sir Austin Chapman KCMG , Australian politician, was a member of several early federal ministries. He was born in Bong Bong near Bowral, New South Wales and educated at Marulan Public School and was apprenticed as a saddler at an early age...
  
   (b. 1864), politician
• 27 April – Ada Cambridge
  Ada Cambridge
  Ada Cambridge , later known as Ada Cross, was an English writer.Overall she wrote more than twenty-five works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works...
  
   (b. 1844), author
• 30 April – Sir Tim Coghlan
  Timothy Augustine Coghlan
  Sir Timothy Augustine Coghlan KCMG was an Australian statistician, holding the post of New South Wales government statistician for 19 years.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1856), NSW state statistician
• 11 May – Hugh Dixson
  Hugh Dixson
  Sir Hugh Dixson was an Australian business man and philanthropist.Dixson was born in George Street, Sydney, the son of Hugh Dixson and his wife Helen, née Craig.-Early life and education:...
  
   (b. 1841), businessman and philanthropist
• 15 May – Joseph James Fletcher
  Joseph James Fletcher
  Joseph James Fletcher was an Australian biologist, winner of the 1921 Clarke Medal.Fletcher was born at Auckland, New Zealand the son of the Rev Joseph Horner Fletcher, a Methodist clergyman, and his wife Kate, née Green...
  
   (b. 1850), biologist
• 21 May – H. V. McKay
  Hugh Victor McKay
  Hugh Victor McKay CBE, was an Australian inventor of the Sunshine Harvester and industrialist.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1865), inventor of the Sunshine harvester
• 4 June – Fred Spofforth
  Fred Spofforth
  Frederick Robert "Fred" Spofforth , also known as "The Demon Bowler", was arguably the Australian cricket team's finest pace bowler of the nineteenth century and was the first bowler to take 50 Test wickets, and the first to take a test hat-trick in 1879...
  
   (b. 1853), cricketer
• 23 June – Henry Lowther Clarke
  Henry Lowther Clarke
  Henry Lowther Clarke was the fourth Anglican bishop and first archbishop of Melbourne, Australia.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1850), Anglican archbishop of Melbourne
• 28 June – William Archibald (b. 1850), South Australian politician
• 14 September – Charles Hedley
  Charles Hedley
  Charles Hedley was a naturalist, active in Australia and winner of the 1925 Clarke Medal.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1862), naturalist
• 3 October – Samuel James Mitchell
  Samuel James Mitchell
  The Hon. Samuel James Mitchell was the first Judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory and served from 1911 to 1912.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1852), first Supreme Court of NT judge
• 11 December – Sir William McMillan
  William McMillan (Australian politician)
  Sir William McMillan KCMG was an Australian politician and businessman. Alfred Deakin said he was a "thoughtful, educated businessman, narrow and cold after the manner of the Manchester School … business-like in manner and incisive in debate".McMillan was born in Derry, Ireland and...
  
   (b. 1850), politician
• 11 December – Gottlieb Schuler
  Gottlieb Schuler
  Gottlieb Frederick Henry Schuler was an Australian journalist, editor of The Age for 26 years from 1900....
  
   (b. 1854), journalist
• 13 December – William Spence
  William Spence
  William Guthrie Spence , Australian trade union leader and politician, played a leading role in the formation of both Australia's largest union, the Australian Workers Union, and the Australian Labor Party.-Early life:...
  
  (b. 1846), trade union leader and politician