French Navigators
La Pérouse and d'Entrecasteaux Expeditions (1788-1791)
In 1785, the King of France commissioned La Perouse to head an expedition to explore the Pacific Ocean, to investigate whaling and fur prospects, and to establish French claims in this area. La Pérouse had admired the explorer James Cook, and wanted to continue his work. His exploration plan was also to look at Rottnest Island and the Swan River area of WA. The young Napoleon Bonaparte applied for a place on the expedition, but was lucky to be refused…
La Perouse was assigned two 500-ton ships called the Astrolabe and the Boussole. Both ships landed at Botany Bay (Port Jackson), Australia, just 5 days after the First Fleet arrived (led by Captain Arthur Phillip). He set up a camp on the northern shore (now known as the suburb of La Perouse in Sydney) where he made contact with the British settlement.
The Astrolabe and the Boussole
After staying six weeks, La Pérouse headed (with leaking ships) for the Solomon Islands (located northeast of Australia). Both of La Perouse's ships were lost in a storm close to the Solomon Islands (near the island of Vanikoro) in the Pacific Ocean in 1788.
In September 1791, the French Assembly decided to send an expedition in search of Jean-François de La Pérouse, who had not been heard of since leaving Botany Bay in March 1788. Bruni d'Entrecasteaux was selected to command this expedition. He was given a frigate, the Recherche (500 tons). A similar ship, the Espérance, was placed under Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec.
When the expedition left Brest on 28 September 1791 the plan of the voyage was to proceed to New Holland (Australia), to sight Cape Leeuwin, then to hug the shore closely all the way to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), inspecting every possible harbour in a rowing boat.
Bruni d'Entrecasteaux made for Cape Leeuwin to carry out his original instructions of searching southern New Holland for La Pérouse. On 6 December land was sighted near Cape Leeuwin, and named D'Entrecasteaux Point. As they sailed further east, they penetrated numerous islands and dangerous shoals, to which they gave the name D'Entrecasteaux Islands — later changed to the Recherche Archipelago.
While the Frenchmen were still in that dangerous area, on 12 December a violent storm descended upon them, and both ships were nearly wrecked. Fortunately, however, they found an anchorage where they were able to ride out the worst of the gale. Landings were made here on the mainland, and the locality was named in honour of Legrand, who had spotted the anchorage, and the ship he was on, Espérance.
The search for La Pérouse ended up being vain. In 1828, the captain Dumont d’Urville discovered the place where the ship of La Pérouse was wrecked. French undersea expeditions have been exploring the wrecks of La Perouse's two ships since 1981.
Until the First French Republic of 9 November 1799 and the year of Napoléon’s Coup d’Etat, no thought of further voyages of explorations had been entertained.
However Napoléon was a staunch supporter of the sciences, arts, education, and also a member of the Institut de France. In early 1800 this fresh and favourable attitude to scientific investigation, together with Napoléon’s personal interest in Australia, developed after he had read the narratives of Dampier and James Cook’s expeditions. The combination of scientific interest, the two explorers’ narratives and the desire to impress Europe with interest in non-military questions inspired Napoléon to endorse new proposals for voyages of exploration in the Southern Seas. It was along the Australian coast that the greatest expanse of unchartered territory laid.
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Welcome to our WA French Explorations' section. We have collected information from Wikipedia and Dorothy Reid thesis (available here). We are not experts, neither historians, only some French people leaving in Perth and interested in WA history in relation to France.
We have broken down the French exporators in WA facinating story into the following chapters:
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