Australian Bicentenary Australian Bicentenary The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1988. It marked 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. The bicentennial year marked Captain Arthur Phillip's arrival with the 11 ships of the First Fleet in Sydney Harbour in 1788, and the founding of the city of Sydney and the colony of New South Wales. 1988 is considered the official bicentenary year of the founding of Australia. The Australian Bicentenary was marked by pomp and ceremony across Australia to mark the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of
Geological Society of London Phillips, and William Phillips. It received its Royal Charter on 23 April 1825 from George IV. Since 1874, the Society has been based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. This building houses the Society's library, which contains more than 300,000 volumes of books and journals. It is a member of the UK Science Council. In 1991, it merged with the Institution of Geologists, which had been formed in 1977 to represent the geological profession. The Society celebrated its bicentenary in 2007. It ran programmes in the geosciences in Britain and abroad, under the auspices of the science writer and palaeontologist Professor