1887 in Australia

Incumbents

• Premier of New South Wales – Patrick Jenning, then Henry Parkes
• Premier of South Australia – John Downer, then Thomas Playford II
• Premier of Queensland – Samuel Griffith
• Premier of Tasmania – James Agnew, then Philip Fysh
• Premier of Victoria – Duncan Gillies
• Governor of the Crown Colony of Western Australia – Sir Frederick Broome

  Events

• 1 January – Clement Wragge is appointed Government Meteorologist for Queensland
• 21 January – Brisbane receives a daily rainfall of 465 millimetres, a record for any Australian capital city.
• 23 March – 81 miners are killed during a coal gas explosion at Bulli, New South Wales
• 22 April – A cyclone hits a pearling fleet off Eighty Mile Beach, 120 men drown.
• 22 June – The Fremantle Town Hall is opened.
• 26 Sept – The Celtic Club Melbourne is formed and remains today as Australia's oldest Irish Club
• 19 October – The Sydney-bound steamer SS Cheviot is wrecked near Point Nepean, Victoria, claiming 35 lives.

  Science and technology

• Construction of Goulburn Weir commenced, one of Australia's earliest irrigation schemes.

  Arts and literature

Sport

• Dunlop wins the Melbourne Cup

  Births

• 2 February – Pat Sullivan, film director
• 16 April – Henry Gordon Bennett, soldier
• 6 July – Annette Kellerman, swimming celebrity

  Deaths