Jean-François-Marie de Surville

Jean-François-Marie de Surville (1717 – April 1770) was a French trader and navigator.

In 1767 de Surville set sail in his ship, the St Jean Baptiste to India to trade between the French settlements in India and China. In 1768, while in India, de Surville heard rumours the British had discovered a fabulously wealthy island in the South Pacific, and decided to try to find this island.

During the voyage numbers of sick and dying crewmembers forced de Surville to find a safe anchorage. De Surville followed Tasman's charts, and headed for New Zealand. On 12 December 1769 11:30am, the St Jean Baptiste sighted the coastline of New Zealand, soon passing James Cook's Endeavour, with neither ship sighting the other due to the bad weather. Surprisingly, both de Surville and Cook were navigating New Zealand waters at the same time, the only Europeans to do so since Abel Tasman, a century earlier. The chaplain on board the St Jean Baptiste was Father Paul-Antoine Léonard de Villefeix who conducted the first Christian services in New Zealand on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1769, in Doubtless Bay.

Later while at anchor, more bad weather damaged the ship. De Surville was forced to make substantial repairs. He ran foul of local Māori, and was forced to flee, kidnapping one of the chiefs, Ranginui.

The St Jean Baptiste continued east across the Pacific, and suffered further loss of crew through scurvy. De Surville drowned in heavy seas off the Peru coast, in April 1770 while seeking help for his dying crews. According to Alan Villiers, author of "Captain Cook - The Seaman's Seaman (Penguin Books - 1967, page 154), De Surville was captured by the Maori of the Bay of Islands in May 1772 and was eaten.^[1]

The Surville Cliffs, the northernmost point of New Zealand's North Island, are named after him.

See also

• Whatuwhiwhi, for de Surville's encounter with Māori.

References