History of Australia (1851–1900)

The History of Australia (1851–1900) refers to the history of the people of the Australian continent during the 50-year period which preceded the foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.

The gold rushes of the 1850s led to high immigration and a booming economy. Increasing prosperity and the growing number of free settlers and locally born people led to popular demands for the end of penal transportation and the introduction of colonial self-government. Transportation of convicts to the colonies was phased out from 1840 to 1868. In 1855 and 1856, Britain granted self-government to New South Wales, the new colony of Victoria, Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania) and South Australia. Queensland became a separate self-governing colony in 1859 and Western Australia was granted self-government in 1890. The colonies introduced universal male suffrage from 1856 to 1900. Women won the vote in South Australia in 1895 and in Western Australia in 1899. Some colonies, however, denied voting rights to most Aboriginal people, Asians and Africans.

European exploration of the interior of the continent, and settlement of the northern coastal regions, progressed rapidly from the 1850s, resulting in further violent conflict with Aboriginal people, disruption of their societies and dispossession of their traditional lands. The living standards of the settlers and their descendants, however, rose to become one of the highest in the world until a severe depression and drought in the 1890s caused widespread social distress.

Growing nationalist sentiment mixed with demands for a "white Australia" led to a series of inter-colonial conferences and referendums in the 1890s which culminated in a new constitution—endorsed by a majority of the population—providing for the federation of the colonies. The constitution gained royal assent in 1900 and the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed on 1 January 1901.