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1826
January
3 Father Philip Conolly opens the first Catholic school in Van Diemen's Land at Hobart

March
9 The Letters Patent is issued in London to form a Church and School Corporation, giving the Anglican Church the status of an established religion in New South Wales with the right to vast areas of Crown land and control of the school system

16 The Australian Subscription Library, the forerunner of the State Library of New South Wales, is founded. It opens, 1 December 1827

17 Bushranger Matthew Brady is captured by John Batman near Launceston. He is hanged on 4 May

April
8 The first street lamp in Australia is lit in Macquarie Place, Sydney

On 13 March 1827 general lighting is across Sydney

12 The Female School of Industry is opened in Sydney to train girls as domestic workers

May
19 The newspaper Monitor begins publication in Sydney by Edward Smith Hall

June
3 A Chamber of Commerce is founded in Sydney

12 Gas lighting is installed by shopkeeper J.T. Wilson of Pitt Street, Sydney. It is the first recorded use of gas lighting in Australia

July
3 The Bank of Australia opens in Sydney

August
29 Darling cancels tickets-of-occupation of land (from 1 March 1827) and substitutes grazing licences at £1 per 100 acres

The Sydney Dispensary (renamed the Sydney Infirmary and Dispensary in 1843) opens in Macquarie Street for free pauper care

October
7
French navigator J.S.C. Dumont d'Urville in L'Astrolabe is at King George's Sound (to 25 October), and at Westernport (12-19 November)

September
5 Darling issues a Limits of Location order restricting settlement to certain areas

25 A convict uprising on Norfolk Island is supressed

November
8 Privates Joseph Sudds and Patrick Thompson openly commit robbery in order to be convicted, considering a convict's life better than a soldier's life. Darling orders that they serve seven years hard labour in a chain-gang and then be returned to their regiment

27 Joseph Sudds dies, giving rise to public criticism of Darling

An influenza epidemic causes 37 deaths in two days in Sydney

December
12 A settlement is established by Captain Samuel Wright at Westernport as a precaution against French colonisation. It is to be abandoned in January 1828

25 Major Edmund Lockyer and a party of soldiers and convicts in the brig Amity arrive at King George Sound to take possession of the western part of the continent and establish a settlement on the site of present-day Albany

An Aboriginal mission is established on Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, under the charge of L.E. Threlkeld.

Other
Augustus Earle publishes his Views in Australia, printed on his own lithographic Press

Fifty-three persons are executed in Tasmania during the year

A register of births, deaths, and marriages is required to be kept in each parish from 1 January 1827