1899 in Australia explained

The following lists events that happened during 1899 in Australia.

Incumbents

1 January – The Police Regulation Act 1898 is enacted in Tasmania, unifying several small regional police forces to form the Tasmanian Police Force.
22 January – Leaders of the six Australian colonies meet in Melbourne to discuss confederation.
4 March – Cyclone Mahina strikes Bathurst Bay in Queensland. Approximately 400 persons are killed, and the pearling fleet is sunk. A storm surge of up to 14 metres sweeps 5 kilometres inland.
24 April – The 1,280-ton barque Loch Sloy hits rocks off Kangaroo Island and sinks, killing 31 persons.
8 December – An electric tram service commences in Sydney, along George Street from the railway to Circular Quay.^[1]
Colonial soldiers leave to fight in the Second Boer War.

8 October – The word "wowser" is first used by John Norton, editor of the Melbourne Truth newspaper.
George Washington Lambert wins the Wynne Prize for landscape painting or figure sculpture for his landscape Across the Blacksoil Plains
Dot and the Kangaroo, a children's book by Ethel Pedley, is published.
On Our Selection by Steele Rudd is published.

7 January – John Collins, Chief of Naval Staff and High Commissioner to New Zealand (died 1989)
17 January – Nevil Shute, writer (died 1960)
21 January – Ernestine Hill, travel writer (died 1972)
22 February – Ian Clunies Ross, scientist (died 1959)
7 March – Eddie Ward, politician (died 1963)
3 September – Frank Macfarlane Burnet, biologist and Nobel Prize winner (died 1985)
24 September – William Dobell, artist, sculptor and painter (died 1970)
21 October – Herb Steinohrt, rugby league footballer (died 1985)
14 December – Frank McMillan, rugby league footballer and coach (died 1966)