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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1825 | - 1825: Tasmania separated from NSW
In 1825 Van Diemen’s Land, which had been part of the colony of New South Wales, became a British colony in its own right. In 1856 Van Diemen’s Land’s name was changed to Tasmania.
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| 2 | 1840 | - 22 Jan 1840: 1st Wellington Settlers
The New Zealand Company’s first settler ship, the Aurora, arrived at Petone to found the settlement that would become Wellington Settlement. Named after the first Duke of Wellington, the victor of the Battle of Waterloo, the new town was part of the New Zealand Company’s systematic model of colonisation developed by Edwin Gibbon Wakefield. Central to his scheme were packages of land comprising a town acre (0.4 ha) and an accompanying 100 country acres (40 ha). There were 1100 one-acre town sections in the plan for Port Nicholson. By the end of 1840, 1200 settlers had arrived in Wellington.
- 6 Feb 1840: Treaty of Waitangi
The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and Maori chiefs (rangatira) from the North Island of New Zealand. It has become a document of central importance to the history, to the political constitution of the state, and to the national mythos of New Zealand, and has played a major role in framing the political relations between New Zealand's government and the Maori population, especially from the late-20th century.
- 16 Nov 1840: NZ becmes a colony
New Zealand officially became a separate colony of the United Kingdom, severing its link to New South Wales. North, South and Stewart islands were to be known respectively as the provinces of New Ulster, New Munster and New Leinster. William Hobson had been appointed Britain’s consul to New Zealand in 1839. He was instructed to obtain sovereignty over all or part of New Zealand with the consent of "a sufficient number" of chiefs. New Zealand would then come under the authority of George Gipps, the governor of New South Wales; Hobson would become Gipps’ lieutenant-governor.
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| 3 | 1842 | - 1 Feb 1842: 1st Settlers arrive Nelson
The Fifeshire arrived in Nelson Settlement on 1 Feb 1842 with immigrants for the New Zealand Company’s first settlement in the South Island. Several thousand settlers arrived in Nelson within a few months.
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| 4 | 1845 | - 1845—1872: New Zealand Wars
The New Zealand Wars were a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand from 1845 to 1872 between the Colonial government and allied Maori on one side and Maori and Maori-allied settlers on the other. At the peak of hostilities in the 1860s, 18,000 British troops, supported by artillery, cavalry and local militia, battled about 4,000 Maori warriors. Over the course of the Taranaki and Waikato campaigns, the lives of about 1,800 Maori and 800 Europeans were lost, and total Maori losses over the course of all the wars may have exceeded 2,100.
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| 5 | 1851 | - 12 Feb 1851: Gold is discovered in New South Wales.
On February 12, 1851, a prospector discovered flecks of gold in a waterhole near Bathurst, New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Soon, even more gold was discovered in what would become the neighboring state of Victoria. This began the Australian Gold Rush.
- 1 Jul 1851: Victoria separated from NSW
In 1851 Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales and renamed itself the Colony of Victoria. As a result of this a Legislative Council was formed to govern the new Colony of Victoria. The first Legislative Council consisted of 30 men, 10 appointed directly by the newly appointed Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Victoria, Charles Latrobe. The remaining 20 men (no women were allowed) were elected to office by wealthy land owners. At this point in time only people who owned a significant amount of land were allowed to vote. In 1855 the Colony of Victoria gained self-governance from Britain
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| 6 | 1853 | - 17 Jan 1853—1 Jan 1877: NZ Provinces
On 17 January 1853, New Zealand was divided into six Provinces (Auckland, Taranaki, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, Otago), though there were soon secessions (Hawkes Bay 1858, Marlborough 1859, Southland 1864-1870, Westland 1868). Each province kept the revenue earned from the sale of their Crown land, and were responsible for encouraging immigration to their area. The provinces formally ceased to exist on the 1 January 1877 and local government was then
vested in elected borough and county councils.
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| 7 | 1854 | - 24 May 1854: 1st NZ Parliment
New Zealand Parliament's first sitting in Auckland occurred on 24 May 1854. Auckland was to be the colony’s capital city (and home to Parliament) for the next 10 years. The colony’s first elected parliamentarians, all 37 of them, were sworn in, making their oaths of allegiance to the Crown in the person of the acting governor, Colonel R.H. Wynyard.
- 3 Dec 1854: Battle of the Eureka Stockade, Ballarat.
On 30 November 1854 miners from the Victorian town of Ballarat, disgruntled with the way the colonial government had been administering the goldfields, swore allegiance to the Southern Cross flag at Bakery Hill and built a stockade at the nearby Eureka diggings. Early on the morning of Sunday 3 December 1854, when the Eureka Stockade was only lightly guarded, government troops attacked. At least 22 diggers and six soldiers were killed. The rebellion of miners at Eureka Stockade is a key event in the development of Australia’s representational structures and attitudes towards democracy and egalitarianism.
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| 8 | 1859 | - 6 Jun 1859: Queensland separated from NSW
Queen Victoria granted approval and signed Letters Patent on 6 June 1859 to establish the new Colony of Queensland, separate from New South Wales. On the same day, an Order-in-Council gave Queensland its own constitution. Queensland became a self-governing colony with its own Governor, a nominated Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly.
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| 9 | 1861 | - 23 May 1861: Otago Gold Rush
The Otago Gold Rush began after Gabriel Read found gold near the Tuapeka River, a tributary of the Clutha River in Otago. The Otago provincial government had offered a £1000 reward for the discovery of "payable quantities" of gold. Read, a prospector from Tasmania, claimed the reward (equivalent to more than $110,000 today) after finding gold "shining like the stars in Orion". His discovery sparked the first major gold rush in New Zealand. The Otago gold rush peaked in the mid-1860s, after which miners left in large numbers for the new West Coast goldfields.
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| 10 | 1863 | - 12 Jul 1863: Waikato Invasion
British troops invaded the Waikato by crossing the Mangatawhiri Stream, which the Kingitanga (Maori King movement) had declared an aukati (a line not to be crossed). Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron had crossed the Mangatawhiri Stream with the declared intention of establishing military posts on the Waikato River. Five days later, the first battle of the Waikato War was fought at Koheroa, near Mercer.
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| 11 | 1865 | - 26 Jul 1865: NZ Parliment moves to Wellington
The New Zealand capital moved from Auckland to more centrally located Wellington on the recommendation of a specially appointed Australian commission. The former Wellington Provincial Council chamber became the new home for Parliament.
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| 12 | 1868 | - 10 Nov 1868: Matawhero Massacre
The Matawhero Massacre was Te Kooti’s utu (revenge) for his exile to the Chatham Islands and subsequent events. In the middle of the night, around 100 men, 60 on horseback, forded the Waipaoa River and moved quietly towards Matawhero. By dawn, they had killed about 60 people of all ages in the Pakeha settlement and adjacent kainga (Maori settlements). Some were shot, but most were bayoneted, tomahawked or clubbed to avoid alerting their neighbours.
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| 13 | 1873 | - 1873—1876: Vogel Immigration and Public Works
The Vogel Era - New Zealand adopted in the 1870s an assisted immigration and public works scheme inaugurated by Colonial Treasurer then Premier Julius Vogel to develop the country and to relieve the slump of the late 1860s; to be financed by borrowing overseas. His "Great Public Works Policy" resulted in a large increase in migrants and provision of many new railways, roads and telegraph lines. The population rose from 248,000 in 1870 to 399,000 in 1876.
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| 14 | 1879 | - 19 Dec 1879: NZ Universal Male Suffrage
Universal Male Suffrage was introduced to New Zealand with the Qualification of Electors Act. The Act extended the right to vote (or electoral franchise) to all European men aged over 21, regardless of whether they owned or rented property. This reform, known as universal male suffrage – or, at the time, as 'manhood suffrage' – helped transform New Zealand’s politics in the late 19th century. Maori men had been granted universal suffrage in 1867, to vote in four special Maori seats.
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| 15 | 1882 | - 15 Feb 1882: 1st Frozen Meat Export
The first frozen meat shipment was exported from New Zealand on 15 February 1882 aboard the Dunedin. The ship had been fitted with a coal-powered Bell Coleman freezing plant, which cooled the entire hold to 22 degrees celsius below the outside temperature. About 5000 carcasses were on board the Dunedin when it sailed from Port Chalmers to London. The new technology ultimately enabled the owner-operated (family) farm to become the standard economic unit in rural New Zealand for the next century.
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| 16 | 1893 | - 19 Sep 1893: NZ Universal Female Suffrage
Universal Female Suffrage in New Zealand was achieved when a new Electoral Act was signed into law in 1893. New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections. The passage of the Act was the culmination of years of agitation by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and other organisations. As part of this campaign, a series of massive petitions were presented to Parliament; those gathered in 1893 were together signed by almost a quarter of the adult female population of New Zealand.
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| 17 | 1899 | - 11 Oct 1899—31 May 1902: Second Anglo-Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought between the British Empire and two Boer states, the South African Republic (Republic of Transvaal) and the Orange Free State, over the Empire's influence in South Africa. Initial Boer attacks were successful, and although British reinforcements later reversed these, the war continued for years with Boer guerrilla warfare, until harsh British counter-measures brought the Boers to terms.
New Zealand sent more than 6,500 personnel and 8,000 horses to South Africa for the war, with 71 killed in action or dying of wounds, with another 159 dying in accidents or from disease.
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| 18 | 1901 | - 1 Jan 1901: Commonwealth of Australia
Australia became a nation on 1 January 1901 when six British colonies — New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania — united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. This process is known as Federation.
- 15 May 1901: 1st Automobile Offence
Speeding Offense: Nicholas Oates appeared in the Christchurch Magistrate’s Court charged with driving 'a motor car within the city at a speed greater than four miles an hour' (6.5 km/hr) on Lincoln Road, Christchurch. The excessive speed had frightened the horses of George Gould, whose carriage was standing in the road near the hospital. Oates and his business partner Alexander Lowry owned Zealandia Cycle Works, the largest bicycle factory in New Zealand or Australia in the late 1890s. In 1898 he had become the first person to import a car into the South Island. At the time of his conviction for speeding there were only seven motor vehicles in Canterbury.
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| 19 | 1904 | - 27 Apr 1904: First Australian Labour Government
When Chris Watson and his ministers were sworn in on 27 April 1904, they were forming not just Australia’s first national Labor government. It was the first national labour government in the world.
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| 20 | 1908 | - 6 Nov 1908: Auckland to Wellington Railway Completed
The Auckland to Wellington Railway was ceremonially opened by Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward, at Manganuioteao, between National Park and Ohakune in 1908. Construction of the central section between Te Awamutu and Marton had taken 23 years. Regular services between Auckland and Wellington began soon after the opening ceremony, and an express service introduced in February 1909 made the journey in 18 hours. From 1924, a new 'Night Limited' service cut the trip to 14 hours.
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| 21 | 1914 | - 28 Jul 1914—11 Nov 1918: World War One
World War One (often abbreviated as WWI or WW1), also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the resulting 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.
Commonwealth countries, including New Zealand and Australia sent troops to the war in support of Great Britian. 8% of Australia's population served overseas in the war (330,000) and total deaths were 60,284. 9% of New Zealand's population served overseas in the war (98,950) and total deaths were 18,058.
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| 22 | 1918 | - Oct 1918: Influenza Pandemic
The second and more deadly wave of a new strain of Influenza arrived in New Zealand in October 1918. By the end of the year around 9,000 people across the country had died. Half as many New Zealanders lost their lives in little more than two months than during the entire First World War, and worldwide the pandemic was responsible for at least 50 million deaths. Maori were particularly affected by the flu, with a death rate eight times that of Pakeha.
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| 23 | 1922 | - 4 Oct 1922: Radio in New Zealand
Radio in New Zealand. The first radio station, Radio Dunedin, began broadcasting on 4 October 1922, but it was only in 1925 that the Radio Broadcasting Company (RBC) began broadcasts throughout New Zealand. In 1932, RBC's assets were acquired by the government, which established the New Zealand Broadcasting Board (NZBB).
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Chris Korte's New Zealand Genealogy Project
1812 -
