[Editor: This is the 6th edition (1936) of A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott (1867-1939).]
A Short History
of Australia
by
Ernest Scott
Professor of History in the University of Melbourne
CONTENTS
LIST OF GOVERNORS AND MINISTRIES
I. THE DAWN OF DISCOVERY
Early maps of the southern regions — Speculations as to Antipodes — Discovery of sea-route to the East Indies — Discovery of the Pacific — The Portuguese and Spaniards — Discovery of the Solomon Islands — Quiros at the New Hebrides — Torres Strait.
II. THE DUTCH AND NEW HOLLAND
Spain and the Netherlands — Cornelius Houtman’s voyage to the East Indies — The Dutch settled at Java — The Duyfken in the Gulf of Carpentaria — Brouwer’s new route to the Indies — Dirk Hartog in Shark’s Bay — Discovery of Nuytsland — Leeuwin’s Land discovered — Wreck of the English ship Trial — Tasman’s voyages — New Holland.
III. DAMPIER AND COOK
Cessation of Dutch explorations — Policy of Dutch East India Company — Dampier’s first voyage to Australia in the Cygnet — His voyage in the Roebuck — Cook’s voyages — Discovery of New South Wales — Botany Bay — Voyage of the Resolution — Popularity of Cook’s Voyages.
IV. THE FOUNDATION OF SYDNEY
Effect of the revolt of the American colonies — The problem of the loyalists — Stoppage of the transportation of criminals to America — Banks suggests founding a convict settlement in New Holland — Matra’s plan — Young’s plan — Determination of Government to establish a settlement in New Holland — Pitt’s policy — Phillip appointed Governor — Sailing of the First Fleet — Phillip rejects Botany Bay and selects Port Jackson — Lapérouse in Botany Bay — Phillip’s task and its performance — His faith in the future — His retirement.
V. THE CONVICT SYSTEM
The New South Wales Corps — Grose and Paterson — Hunter Governor of New South Wales — Trading monopolies — System of transportation — The assignment system — Tickets of leave — Political prisoners — Irish rebels.
VI. GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNORS
System of government — An autocracy — Hunter’s governorship — His difficulties — Recalled — King’s governorship — The rum traffic — Bligh’s governorship — John Macarthur — His arrest and trial — Deposition of Bligh.
VII. FURTHER EXPLORATIONS
Attempts to cross the Blue Mountains — Blaxland’s success — Evans discovers the Bathurst Plains — Voyages of Bass and Flinders in the Tom Thumb — Bass discovers coal — Discovery of Bass Strait and Westernport — Bass and Flinders circumnavigate Tasmania in the Norfolk — End of Bass — Voyage of the Lady Nelson — Murray discovers Port Phillip — Flinders’s voyage in the Investigator — Discovery of Spencer’s and St. Vincent’s Gulfs and Kangaroo Island — Meeting with Baudin in Encounter Bay — Circumnavigation of Australia — The name Australia — Flinders in Mauritius — His liberation and death.
VIII. THE EXTENSION OF SETTLEMENT
Baudin’s expedition — Effect of French operations — Settlement at Risdon Cove — First Port Phillip Settlement — Foundation of Hobart — Settlement of Port Dalrymple — Napoleon’s order to ‘take Port Jackson’ — Sea power and the security of Australia — The Astrolabe at Westernport — Governor Darling’s commission — Alteration of boundaries of New South Wales — Westernport and King George’s Sound settlements — Whole of Australia claimed as British territory.
IX. THE LAST OF THE TYRANTS
Macquarie governor of New South Wales — British military forces sent to Australia — Demand for a council — The emancipist question — The Governor’s policy — His difficulties with military officers — Trial by jury — Quarrels with the Bent brothers — Emancipist attorneys — Macquarie’s autocracy.
X. THE DAWN OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT
Uneasiness in England concerning the convict system — Commissioner Bigge’s inquiries — New South Wales Judicature Act — The first Legislative Council — Chief Justice Forbes — Enlargement of the Council — Wentworth — His Australian — The Governor and the press — Governor Darling — Trial by jury — Robert Lowe — His Atlas newspaper — His visions of Imperial relations.
XI. THE PROBLEM OF THE RIVERS
Oxley’s explorations on the Lachlan and the Macquarie — Immigration policy — Oxley in Moreton Bay — Foundation of Brisbane — Lockyer explores the Brisbane River — Explorations of Hume and Hovell — Alan Cunningham explores the Liverpool Range — Sturt’s explorations — He discovers the Darling — Discovery of the Murray — Its exploration to the sea — The naming of the Murray — Mitchell discovers Australia Felix — The Hentys at Portland.
XII. THE FOUNDING OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Stirling’s examination of the Swan River — Proposals for colonization — Thomas Peel’s project — The Peel River colony — The site of Perth — Early difficulties — Peel’s failure — Stirling’s governorship — Western Australia and the eastern colonies — Shortage of labour — New land regulations — Desire for convict immigrants — A penal colony — Dissatisfaction with the transportation system.
XIII. SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND THE WAKEFIELD THEORY
Wakefield’s Letter from Sydney — His theory of colonization — The Colonial Office and Wakefield’s Principle — Act to establish South Australia — Colonists at Kangaroo Island — Colonel Light selects site of Adelaide — Recall of Governor Hindmarsh — Gawler’s governorship — Grey appointed Governor — His reforms.
XIV. THE PORT PHILLIP DISTRICT
The Henty family — Batman in Port Phillip — His ‘treaty’ with the natives — He determines on ‘the place for a village’ — Fawkner’s party on the Yarra — Official objection to Port Phillip Settlement — Captain Lonsdale takes charge — Bourke names Melbourne — Latrobe appointed superintendent — Batman’s reward and death.
XV. FROM VAN DIEMEN’S LAND TO TASMANIA
Death of Collins and Paterson — Davey Lieutenant-Governor — The rule of Colonel Arthur — The convict system — Macquarie Harbour — Port Arthur — Bushranging — The black war — Arthur’s black drive — Robinson’s work among the aboriginals — Irish political prisoners — The Dorsetshire labourers — Jorgensen — Tasmania named.
XVI. THE LAND AND THE SQUATTERS
Land grants — Who the squatters were — Pastoral districts and licences — Bourke’s policy — Special surveys — The pound per acre system — Gipps’s policy — Conquest of Australia by the colonist — Ridley’s stripper — Farrer’s Federation wheat — John Macarthur and the wool trade — The aboriginals.
XVII. THE END OF CONVICTISM
Sir William Molesworth’s committee on transportation — Effect of the committee’s report — Order in Council discontinuing transportation to Australia — Effect of new policy — The new prison system — ‘Pentonvillains’ — Convicts shipped to Port Phillip — Growth of anti-transportation feeling — Gladstone’s policy — The Randolph in Hobson’s Bay — Resistance to landing of ‘exiles’ — Lord Grey and the colonies.
XVIII. SELF-GOVERNMENT
Sir Charles Fitzroy ‘Governor-General’ — The Act for the Government of New South Wales — The Legislative Council — Boundaries of districts — Dissatisfaction in Port Phillip — Earl Grey elected member for Melbourne — Colonial self-government — Australian Colonies Government Act — The naming of Victoria — Inauguration of self-government — Wentworth’s new constitution — His proposed house of baronets — The Victorian constitution — Responsible government.
XIX. GOLD
Strzelecki finds gold among the mountains — W. B. Clarke’s prognostications — Gold found in the Port Phillip district — Official disfavour of gold discoveries — Hargreaves’s Discoveries — Ballarat — Bendigo — Wonderful finds — Inrush of Chinese — The digging days — Digging licences — Riot on the Turon — Unrest at Ballarat — The Eureka Stockade — The miner’s right — Gold-mining as an industry — Gympie — Mount Morgan — Coolgardie — The Golden Mile — Broken Hill — The Burra.
XX. THE HEART OF THE CONTINENT
Flinders’s plan — George Grey’s journeys — Eyre’s journey to Central Australia — His tramp across the desert — Sturt’s journey to the interior — McDouall Stuart reaches the centre — He crosses the continent — Leichhardt’s explorations — His fate — Mitchell and the Barcoo — Death of Kennedy — Burke and Wills — Angus Macmillan in Gippsland — Strzelecki — The Forrest brothers — Ernest Giles.
XXI. QUEENSLAND
Settlement at Moreton Bay — Its abandonment — The Gladstone Colony at Port Curtis — Separation of Queensland from New South Wales — The new colony proclaimed — Its boundaries — Bowen’s governorship.
XXII. THE NORTHERN TERRITORY
Adjustment of boundaries — Queensland secures the Barklay Tableland — South Australia undertakes to administer the Northern Territory — Darwin founded — The overland telegraph line — Port Essington.
XXIII. DEMOCRACY AT WORK — (a) GOVERNMENT
Free scope left to the colonies — The protection afforded them — Napoleon III and his supposed designs on Australia — The Shenandoah incident — The ballot — Constitutional reforms — Women enfranchised — Elective and nominee councils — Cowper’s quarrel with the Council in New South Wales — McCulloch’s protection policy in Victoria — David Syme — The Victorian constitutional struggle — The Darling grant — Payment of members — Black Wednesday — Reform of Victorian Council.
XXIV. DEMOCRACY AT WORK — (b) LAND, LABOUR, AND THE POPULAR WELFARE
Immigration — Anti-Chinese legislation — First intercolonial conference — Land legislation — Torrens Real Property Act — Labour questions — Trade union congresses — Labour politics — Great maritime strike — The Labour Party — Wages board system — Education, ‘free, compulsory, and secular’ — The Universities — Sea-routes and steam-ships — Railways and gauges.
XXV. PAPUA AND THE PACIFIC
A ‘Monroe doctrine’ for the Pacific — French annexation of New Caledonia — The New Hebrides — New Guinea — Captain Morseby’s discoveries — The colonies and New Guinea — Queensland’s awakened interest — Gold discoveries — German intentions — McIlwraith orders annexation of New Guinea — Action disavowed by British Government — Strong feeling in Australia — German annexations — Lord Granville’s surprise — Kanaka labour — ‘Blackbirding’ — Queensland regulates the labour traffic.
XXVI. THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS FEDERATION
Lord Grey’s proposal — The federal spirit — The Federal Council — Its limitations — Henry Parkes — Federal Convention of 1891 — Defection of New South Wales — Corowa Conference — Convention of 1897-8.
XXVII. THE CONSTITUTION
Responsible government and federation — The task of the Convention — Types of federal government — The Senate — The House of Representatives — Provision against deadlocks — The High Court — The Governor-General — Federal powers — The name ‘Commonwealth’ — New South Wales and the constitution — G. H. Reid’s attitude — Referendums — Conference of premiers — The Bill before the Imperial Parliament — The Commonwealth proclaimed — First Parliament opened.
XXVIII. THE COMMONWEALTH — (a) PARTIES AND PERSONALITIES
The three parties — The Barton Ministry — Reid and the Opposition — Watson and the Labour Party — The White Australia policy — Kanaka labour — C. C. Kingston — Conciliation and Arbitration Bill — First Deakin Government — Watson Government — The Reid-McLean Government — Second Deakin Government — Retirement of Watson — Fisher leader of Labour Party — First Fisher Government — The ‘Fusion’ (Deakin-Cook) Government — Second Fisher Government — Cook Government — A ride for a fall — Deadlock — Third Fisher Government — Hughes Government — The great European War.
XXIX. THE COMMONWEALTH — (b) THE WHEELS OF POLICY
The federal capital — Choice of Dalgety — Choice revoked and Canberra finally selected — Papua and the Northern Territory — The Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta railway — The amendment of the constitution — The referendums — Defence policy — The naval agreement — Compulsory military service — The Kitchener and Henderson reports — The new naval squadron — The Australia — The Sydney–Emden fight at Cocos.
XXX. AUSTRALIA IN THE GREAT WAR
Outbreak of war — The double dissolution — ‘The last man and the last shilling’ — Third Fisher Government — The A.I.F. — The Sydney–Emden fight — Defence of the Suez Canal — The Dardanelles — The Gallipoli campaign — ‘Anzac’ — On the Somme — Monash’s Army Corps — Battles in France — The Palestine campaign — The Australian soldier — The split in the Labour Party — Conscription Referenda — The cost in men and money — The mandates — The Bruce Government.
XXXI. IMPERIAL RELATIONS AND THE AUSTRALIAN SPIRIT
British colonial policy — Grey — Disraeli — ‘A person named Rogers’ — ‘The crimson thread of kinship’ — Colonial Conference of 1887 — Second Colonial Conference — Preferential duties — The old colonial system and the new — Soudan contingent — Australia and the South African War — Anzac — Race sentiment among Australians — Poetry and painting.
EPILOGUE
From tyranny to freedom — Implications of responsible government — A process of political evolution — The Balfour definition of 1926 — The Statute of Westminster, 1931 — The British Commonwealth of Nations — Dominion status — Advantages and obligations.
Oxford University Press
London: Humphrey Milford
First Edition . . . . December 1916
Second Edition . . . . January 1918
Third Edition . . . . January 1919
Fourth Edition . . . . January 1921
Re-issue . . . . . March 1926
Second Impression . . . May 1927
Fifth Edition . . . . November 1927
Second Impression . . . November 1928
Third Impression . . . November 1929
Fourth Impression . . . November 1930
Fifth Impression . . . February 1935
Sixth Impression . . . September 1935
Sixth Edition . . . . March 1936
Printed in Great Britain by
Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., London and Aylesbury.
Source:
Ernest Scott, A Short History of Australia, London: Oxford University Press, 6th edition, 1936
Editor’s notes:
The book included a preface and an index, which were not included in the book’s list of contents, but which have been included here for ease of access.
The contents listings are on pages vii-xiii of the book.
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