1902 in Australia

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1902
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1902 in Australia
Monarch	Edward VII
Governor-General	John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun
Prime minister	Edmund Barton
Population	3,845,265
Elections	South Australia, Victoria, Queensland

Incumbents

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]

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

17 September – Opera singer Nellie Melba arrives in 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

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

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)

^ Sorted rainfall over Australia for all months
^ April 1902 rainfall totals
^ Australian Bureau of Meteorology National Climate Centre; Annual Climate Summary 2000, p. 1
^ Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Sorted annual rainfall over Australia
^ Smith, Ian; "An assessment of recent trends in Australian rainfall"; in Australian Meteorological Magazine; issue 53 (2004); pp. 163-173

Years in Australia (1788–present)

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

v t e 1902 in Oceania
Sovereign states	Australia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu
Associated states of New Zealand	Cook Islands Niue