Baudin expedition to Australia

The Baudin expedition of 1800 to 1803 was a French expedition to map the coast of Australia. Nicolas Baudin was selected as leader in October 1800. The expedition started with two ships, Géographe, captained by Baudin, and Naturaliste captained by Jacques Hamelin, and was accompanied by nine zoologists and botanists, including Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, François Péron and Charles-Alexandre Lesueur.

In May 1801, the expedition reached Australia, being the first to explore and map the western coast, and a part of the southern coast.[1]

A lot of Western Australian places still have French names today: Baudin Beach, Peron Peninsula, Faure Island.

In April 1802 they encountered the British ship Investigator captained by Matthew Flinders, also engaged in charting the coastline, in Encounter Bay in what is now South Australia. The expedition later stopped at the British colony of Sydney for supplies.

From Sydney, the Frenchs headed to Tasmania, before continuing north to Timor. On their way home the ships stopped in Mauritius, where Baudin died of tuberculosis. The expedition finally came back in France in 1804.

The French had peaceful relationships with all Aboriginal peoples they met. They notably produced precious ethnological studies of Tasmanian Natives, who disappeared quickly after British colonization in 19th century.

An inscription was left by members of Géographe on Kangaroo Island, Australia, in 1803.

Contents

Crew

Captains: Nicolas Thomas Baudin (1754–1803) (Géographe) and Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin (1768–1839) (Naturaliste).

Surgeon-Physician and Naturalist: Pierre François Keraudren (1769–1858) (Le Géographe)(Preparations not on board)

Naturalists: Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour (1773–1826), René Maugé de Cely, Stanislas Levillain (1774–1801), François Péron (1775–1810), Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (left expedition at Mauritius), Désiré Dumont, André Michaux (1746–1803

Artist: Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846) assisted by Nicolas-Martin Petit (1777–1804).

Astronomers: Pierre-François Bernier (1779–1803) and Frédéric de Bissy (1768–1803).

Cartographers: Charles-Pierre Boullanger

Mineralogists: Louis Depuch, Joseph Charles Bailly

Sailors: Hyacinthe de Bougainville, midshipman second-class, and François-Antoine Boniface Heirisson, midshipman

Publications

Collections

Over 200,000 specimens from the expedition were deposited in Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (zoology) and Jardin des Plantes (botany). Live plants, animals and birds were also sent to Empress Josephine Bonaparte's gardens at Château de Malmaison.

References

  1. ^ M.L. Freycinet, Carte Générale de la Nouvelle Hollande dressée par M. L. Freycinet Commandant de la Goëllette le Casuarina, An 1808. Louis Freycinet, Atlas Historique, Paris, 1811. [1]

References

See also