1850 in Australia

Governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy
• Governor of South Australia – Sir Henry Fox Young
• Governor of Tasmania – Sir William Denison
• Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony – Captain Charles Fitzgerald.

  Events

• 26 January – The Irish Exile, a weekly newspaper, starts publishing in Hobart by Patrick O'Donoghue: aimed mainly at fellow Irish prisoners and deportees.
• 5 August – Port Phillip established as a separate colony from New South Wales.
• 1 June – First convicts arrive in Western Australia, ticket-of-leave transportation suspended in New South Wales.
• 1 October – University of Sydney is founded as Australia's first university.

  Science and technology

• Bucolus fourneti - described by Étienne Mulsant

  Births

• 7 January
• * Joseph James Fletcher, biologist, winner of the 1921 Clarke Medal
• * Robert Richardson, journalist, poet and writer for children
• 29 January – Lawrence Hargrave, engineer, explorer, astronomer, inventor and aeronautical pioneer
• 1 February – Matthew Henry Davies, speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly
• 13 February – Michael Kelly, fourth Archbishop of Sydney
• 17 February – Alf Morgans, premier of Western Australia
• 23 February – Octavius Beale, piano manufacturer and a philanthropist
• 26 April – James Drake, Australian politician
• 12 May – Frederick Holder, premier of South Australia
• 23 August – John Cockburn, premier of South Australia
• 22 October – Charles Kingston, premier of South Australia
• 23 November – Henry Lowther Clarke, fourth Anglican bishop and first archbishop of Melbourne

• Christie Palmerston, explorer and prospector in North Queensland
• Mei Quong Tart, Sydney merchant
• John A. Upton, painter

  Deaths

• 9 February – Elizabeth Macarthur, co-founder of the wool industry in Australia.
• 16 June – William Lawson, explorer and politician.
• William Westall
• Yuranigh