The first Australian colony was New South Wales, founded in 1788 by Captain Arthur Phillip as a British penal colony on Port Jackson, now the city of Sydney.
Initially all of Australia came under the jurisdiction of NSW. Tasmania came under separate administration as a penal colony in 1825.
The government attempted to constrain settlement around Sydney into the 13 counties, however settlement quickly spread beyond this artificial restriction.
The first explorers of Victoria were Hamilton Hume, after whom the Hume Highway is named, and William Hovell.
The region that is Victoria was originally settled by a group of Tasmanians led by John Batman who set up a village on the Yarra River. Victoria has relatively rich land and the settlement was originally agricultural in nature.
In 1851 gold was discovered at Ballarat, subsequently at Bendigo and at later at many sites around the state. This triggered one of the largest gold rushes the world has ever seen. Victoria grew rapidly and was granted independence from NSW.
In 1854 there was an armed rebellion against the government of Victoria by miners protesting against mining taxes (the "Eureka Stockade"). This was crushed by British troops but some of the leaders of the rebellion subsequently became members of the Victoria Parliament and the rebellion is still sometimes regarded as a pivotal moment in the development of Australia democracy.
Many Chinese miners worked in Victoria, and their legacy is particulary strong at Bendigo. There did not seem to be the anti-chinese violence that was seen at the Massacre of Lambing Flat in NSW. There was however a massacre at Buckland Valley on July 4, 1857. There was a massive outbreak of typhoid at Buckland Valley in 1854 that killed over 1000 miners.
George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby, was governor during 1879—1884.
The first foreign military action by the colony of Victoria was to send troops and a warships to New Zealand as part of the Maori Wars. New South Welsh troops had previously participated in the Crimean War
In 1901 Victoria ceased to be an independent colony and became a state in the commonwealth of Australia. Victorian and Tasmanian policitians were particularly active in this process.
As a result of the gold, Melbourne became the financial centre of Australia and New Zealand. For a time Melbourne was capital of Australia (while Canberra, the current capital city, was being built) and was the largest city in Australia. Melbourne remains an important financial centre but since about 1970 Sydney has overtaken Melbourne both in size and financial importance.
See also: Politics of Victoria