Lieutenant-Governor David Collins R.M. was the inaugral Governor of the Colony of Van Diemens Land, founded in 1804, which in 1901 became the state of Tasmania in the Commonwealth of Australia. Earlier, in 1788, Collins had been one of the founders of the penal colony of New South Wales at Port Jackson, now Sydney. He also established the first settlement in what later became the Colony of Victoria at Sorrento on Port Phillip Bay, south of modern Melbourne in 1803.

Collins has given his name to Collins Street, Melbourne and Collins Street , Hobart, Tasmania.