The following lists events that happened during 1852 in Australia.

Governors of the Australian colonies:

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

• 10 February – the Supreme Court of Victoria sits for the first time in Melbourne.
• 1–2 April – The Nelson robbery takes place in Hobsons Bay.
• 25 June – The Murrumbidgee River flooded Gundagai, New South Wales killing 89 of the population of 250. The town was moved to higher ground. The flooding continued but no deaths occurred.
• 4 July – Anti-Chinese riots occur in Victoria, Australia.
• 11 October – The University of Sydney was inaugurated, Australia's first university.

• 19 January – Thomas Price, 24th Premier of South Australia (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1909)
• 28 January – Louis Brennan, mechanical engineer and inventor (born in Ireland) (d. 1932)
• 8 February – Sir Malcolm McEacharn, Victorian politician and shipping magnate (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1910)
• 26 March – Alexander Sutherland, educator, writer and philosopher (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1902)
• 14 April – Sir John Quick, Victorian politician and lawyer (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1932)
• 20 July – Sir William Rooke Creswell, 1st Naval Officer Commanding the Commonwealth Naval Forces (born in Gibraltar) (d. 1933)
• 12 August – Algernon Keith-Falconer, 9th Earl of Kintore, 12th Governor of South Australia (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1930)
• 19 August – Edward Rennie, scientist (d. 1927)
• 4 September – Edmund Banfield, author and naturalist (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1923)
• 18 September – Clement Wragge, meteorologist (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1922)
• 20 November – Henry Hoyle, New South Wales politician and rugby league administrator (d. 1926)
• 26 November – Arthur Groom, Victorian politician and land agent (d. 1922)
• 27 December – John Ferguson, minister (born in the United Kingdom) (d. 1925)

• 21 May – James Mudie, officer, landowner and author (born and died in the United Kingdom) (b. 1779)
• 29 June – Jeffery Hart Bent, judge (born in the United Kingdom and died in Guyana) (b. 1781)
• 16 October – George Evans, surveyor and explorer (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1780)
• Unknown – Johann Menge, explorer and geologist (born in Hesse-Cassel) (b. 1788)