'This is the people's golden day': Anniversary Day Press Coverage and National Consciousness in New South Wales

Abstract

On 26 January 1857 the 'Empire', Sydney's liberal daily, heralded the sixty-ninth anniversary of European settlement at Sydney Cove with customary hyperbole. "This is the people's golden day", it declared, "dedicated to national enjoyment". The paper concluded with an exhortation for the future: "May the anniversary of the first landing of our countrymen on these shores come round through all time to a free and happy people, and be held in remembrance as a golden day forever". Editorials of this kind on Anniversary Day and press reports of the annual festivities contained much to foster the development of national consciousness in New South Wales (NSW). They were one source for the perception, evident among the inhabitants before Federation, that NSW was a colonial nation within the British Empire. Similar notions of nationhood were evident in other Australian colonies during the second half of the nineteenth century and these separate colonial nationalisms were integral to the way Australian identity was perceived at Federation.