1902 in Australia

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← 1901 1900 1899 1902 in Australia → 1903 1904 1905
Decades:	1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s
See also:	Other events of 1902 Timeline of Australian history

The following lists events that happened during 1902 in Australia.

In 1902 women were finally allowed to vote and stand in federal elections.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Edward VII
• John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun
• Prime Minister – Edmund Barton

State premiers

• Premier of New South Wales – John See
• Premier of South Australia – John Jenkins
• Premier of Queensland – Robert Philp
• Premier of Tasmania – Elliott Lewis
• Premier of Western Australia – George Leake (until 1 July), then Walter James
• Premier of Victoria – Alexander Peacock (until 10 June), then William Irvine

State governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Admiral Harry Rawson (from 27 May)
• Governor of South Australia – Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson (until 17 July)
• Governor of Queensland – Major General Sir Herbert Chermside (from 24 March)
• Governor of Tasmania – Captain Sir Arthur Havelock
• Governor of Western Australia – Sir Arthur Lawley (until 14 August)
• Governor of Victoria – Sir George Clarke

Events

• 7 February – The Waterside Workers Federation is formed.
• April – Averaged over Australia, the driest month on record with only 3.74 millimetres (0.15 in).^[1] Over half the continent was absolutely rainless and less than 3 percent outside Tasmania had more than 10 millimetres (0.39 in).^[2]
• 31 May – The Second Boer War, in which Australia is involved, ends.
• 12 June – The Commonwealth Franchise Act granted most Australian women the right to vote and stand in federal elections.
• 31 July – A coal gas explosion kills 96 in the Mount Kembla mining disaster
• 1 August – New Idea magazine is first published.
• 3 November –
  Postmaster-General James Drake opens a submarine telegraph cable from Southport, Queensland to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, completing a British Empire
  communications line.
• 18 December – The mayors of Sydney and Melbourne are conferred the title of
  Lord Mayor
• 26 December – Brisbane is declared a city.
• 26 December – Ada Evans becomes the first female law graduate in Australia.
• As a culmination of the Federation Drought, this was by raw totals the driest calendar year averaged over Australia since 1890^[3] with only 314.46 millimetres (12.38 in)^[4] (though by area-averaged mean decile it was only eleventh driest).^[5]

Unknown dates

• The world's first successful pyritic smelting takes place at Mount Lyell, Tasmania

Arts and literature

• 17 September – Opera singer
  Brisbane
  for her first Australian tour after 16 years in Europe.
• James White wins the Wynne Prize with his bronze sculpture In Defence of the Flat

Sport

• 27 September – Collingwood wins the 1902 VFL grand final, defeating Essendon 9.6 (60) to 3.9 (27) at the first final to be held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before a record crowd of 35,000.
• 11 November – The Victory wins the Melbourne Cup
• New South Wales wins the
  Sheffield Shield

Births

• 15 January – Dan Dempsey
  , rugby league footballer (d. 1960)
• 25 February – Vince Gair
  , politician (d. 1980)
• Alan Marshall
  , writer (d. 1984)
• 22 May – Leslie Herron
  , Chief Justice of NSW (d. 1973)
• 12 July – Vic Armbruster
  , rugby league footballer (d. 1984)
• 17 July – Christina Stead
  , writer (d. 1983)
• 28 July – Albert Namatjira
  , painter (d. 1959)

• 27 February – Breaker Morant, convicted military officer, bush poet and drover (born in the United Kingdom and died in South Africa) (b. 1864
  )
• 6 March – Frederick William Piesse, Tasmanian politician (b. 1848
  )
• 24 June – George Leake, 3rd Premier of Western Australia (b. 1856
  )