Born on this day
Thursday, January 18, 1849. : Edmund Barton, the first Prime Minister of Australia, is born.
Sir Edmund Barton, first Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia, was born on 18 January 1849, in Sydney, New South Wales. He was educated at Fort Street High School and Sydney Grammar School, where he was twice dux and school captain. He graduated with first class honours in classics from the University of Sydney, where he also demonstrated considerable skill at cricket. In 1879, Barton successfully stood for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the University of Sydney constituency and in 1882 he became Speaker of the Assembly. From 1887 to 1891, and again from 1897 to 1898, Barton sat in the Legislative Council.
Barton was a strong advocate of the federation of the Australian colonies, and he led the federal movement following the death of Sir Henry Parkes. In 1897 he was one of the NSW delegates to the Constitutional Convention which developed a constitution for the proposed federation. As the most vigorous federalist in the largest state, Barton was appointed Prime Minister, although this was only after some negotiations with the newly elected Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun, who initially invited Sir William Lyne, the Premier of New South Wales, to form a government.
Barton was Prime Minister from January 1901 to September 1903. He died on 27 January 1920.
Australian Explorers
Tuesday, January 18, 1825. : Hume and Hovell return from their successful exploration overland to Port Phillip.
Hamilton Hume was an Australian-born settler with excellent bush skills. He was interested in exploring south of the known Sydney area in order to open up new areas of land, but could not gain Government support for his proposed venture. William Hovell was an English former ship’s captain with little bush experience, keen to assist Hume’s expedition financially, and accompany him. Hume and Hovell commenced their expedition on 3 October 1824. They travelled overland from Hume’s homestead at Lake George, southwest to Port Phillip.
Although the two men argued for most of their journey, and even for many years after their return, the expedition was successful in many ways. Hume and Hovell were the first to discover the “Hume River”, though it was later renamed by Sturt as the Murray River. They were the first white men to see the Australian Alps. Much good grazing and pasture land was also found. On 18 January 1825, Hume and Hovell arrived back at Hume’s homestead.
Australian History
Friday, January 18, 1788. : Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet of convicts arrive at Botany Bay.
Arthur Phillip was born in London on 11 October 1738. He joined the Royal Navy when he was fifteen, and alternately earned a living as a navy officer and as a farmer. In October 1786, Phillip was appointed Governor-designate of the proposed British penal colony of New South Wales. Phillip was a practical man who suggested that convicts with experience in farming, building and crafts be included in the First Fleet, but his proposal was rejected, and this made the establishment of a workable colony difficult in the early years.
The First Fleet, consisting of eleven ships, left Portsmouth, England, on 13 May 1787,and arrived in Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. Phillip immediately determined that there was insufficient fresh water, an absence of usable timber, poor quality soil and no safe harbour at Botany Bay. Thus the fleet was moved to Port Jackson, arriving on 26 January 1788.
Australian History
Tuesday, January 18, 1977. : 83 are killed in the Granville railway disaster, Australia’s worst train disaster to date.
Granville is a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, situated along the popular Sydney-Blue Mountains line. In the early morning commuter rush of 18 January 1977, the 6:09am train travelling from Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains to Sydney left the rails and hit a row of supports of the overhead concrete and steel road bridge at Bold Street. The accident occurred around 8:10am.
After the derailed engine car and the first two carriages passed the bridge, the locomotive and first carriage broke free from the other carriages, hitting a power line mast, which tore through the carriage, killing eight passengers. Carriage two was clear of the bridge when the remaining carriages ground to a halt. The rear two-thirds of carriage three and the forward third of carriage four were under the bridge. With its supports demolished, the bridge and several motor cars crashed down onto carriages three and four, crushing many of the passengers inside.
83 passengers were killed from carriages one, three and four. 213 more passengers were injured. The train driver and the secondman, and the motorists on the bridge all survived. Many people were trapped in the train for hours after the accident by part of the bridge crushing a limb or torso. Many of these people were conscious and able to talk to rescuers, but died of crush syndrome soon after the crushing weight was removed from their bodies, due to the sudden release of toxins having built up in the limb suddenly overloading the kidneys. This resulted in a greater awareness of crush syndrome and subsequent changes to rescue procedures for such accidents.
Australian History
Saturday, January 18, 2003. : Firestorms begin their onslaught on Canberra, capital of Australia.
Australia’s capital city, Canberra, lies in the Australian Capital Territory, which is some 2,359 square kilometres in size. With a population of around 324,000, it is Australia’s largest inland city.
In January of 2003, intense bushfires burned through the Australian Capital Territory, damaging almost 70% of its pasture land, forests and nature parks over the period of a week. The fires were started by lightning strikes in the Kosciuszko National Park to the west of the ACT. A state of emergency was declared in the city itself when, at 2.45pm on 18 January 2003, the fires reached the outskirts of Canberra and began encroaching upon the city. Over the next ten hours, four people died and more than 500 homes were destroyed.
One of the greatest cultural and scientific losses caused by the fires was the damage to the Mount Stromlo Observatory, headquarters of the Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics of the Australian National University. Five historically significant telescopes were destroyed, while instrumentation and engineering workshops, the observatory’s library and the main administration buildings were also consumed.
Special Days
Wednesday, January 18, 1882. : Today is Winnie-the-Pooh Day, in celebration of author A A Milne’s birthday.
Winnie-the-Pooh day is celebrated on 18 January every year, the same day that AA Milne, author of Winnie-the-Pooh, was born.
Alan Alexander Milne was born on 18 January 1882 in Scotland. He was raised in London and attended a small private school, where one of his teachers was author H G Wells. He attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship. While there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. Milne’s work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later assistant editor.
Milne wrote a number of novels and non-fiction works, but he is most famous for his creation of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. These feature Christopher Robin, named after his son who was born in 1920, and various characters inspired by his son’s stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Milne bought his son a toy bear, whose name was said to have been inspired by a black bear named Winnie who resided at London Zoo. Christopher Robin often visited the black bear, as well as a swan named Pooh: thus, Christopher Robin’s toy bear became Winnie-the-Pooh.
The stories of Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared in print in 1926, illustrated by E H Shepard. The illustrations took on a very different form when Disney bought the rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh characters during the 1960s. A A Milne died on 31 January 1956.