Black Thursday

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

the day of a Victorian conflagration,which occurred on Feb. 6, 1851. The thermometer was 112degrees in the shade. Ashes from the fire at Macedon, 46 milesaway, fell in Melbourne. The scene forms the subject of thecelebrated picture entitled «Black Thursday,» by WilliamStrutt, R.B.A.


1859. Rev. J. D. Mereweather, `Diary of a Working Clergyman inAustralia,' p. 81:

«Feb. 21 . . . Dreadful details are reaching us of the greatbush fires which took place at Port Phillip on the 6th of thismonth . . . . Already it would seem that the appellation of`Black Thursday' has been given to the 6th February, 1851, forit was on that day that the fires raged with the greatestfury.»

1889. Rev. J. H. Zillman, `Australian Life,' p. 39:

«The old colonists still repeat the most terrible stories ofBlack Thursday, when the whole country seemed to be on fire.The flames leaped from tree to tree, across creeks, hills, andgullies, and swept everything away. Teams of bullocks in theyoke, mobs of cattle and horses, and even whole families ofhuman beings, in their bush-huts, were completely destroyed,and the charred bones alone found after the wind and fire hadsubsided.»

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