French Navigators
The English Annexation of WA (1804-1829)
The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and Great Britain during the French Revolutionary Wars. It represented no more than a brief pause in the continuing conflict between Britain and France. In May 1804 Britain reopened hostilities. As a result French voyages of exploration to the southern continent ceased. The Napoléonic Wars finally ended with the British and Prussian victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. France not only lost the war, but also lost all her colonies including those in India.
Conversely, France had for many years mounted expeditions of exploration, sailing around and observing the coasts of Australia, including the western coast, but focused mainly on scientific interest. France neither suffered from population overcrowding, nor was in need of establishing a convict settlement to offload surplus production. France’s homeland was productive and sufficient to provide for her populace, and as France was not producing goods for export on an industrial scale, there was not the imperative for an export market. However, the French always aimed at finding anti-British bases in order to keep the traditional British enemy out of the Pacific or defeat them in a future major conflict.
While Britain had naval strength, a relatively close Indian base, and colonies on the eastern coast of Australia as a point for both maintenance and despatch of British naval ships to protect the western part of the Australian continent, France did not benefit from the same circumstances as the French Navy had been severely depleted by wars and the final loss to Britain in 1815.
Yet France sent expeditions to explore, map, and scientifically investigate the land, seas and heavens, documenting findings about the Australian coastline, and WA in particular, for the benefit of world knowledge, thus attempting to restore national pride. In the aftermath of the Wars, the French soon resumed their scientific expeditions to WA.
La Coquille
Louis Claude de Freycinet in charge of the Uranie, arrived at Shark Bay on 12 September 1818, set up a camp on Péron Peninsular, carried out botanic scientific observations and sent out a party to investigate Dirk Hartog Island. De Freycinet feared de Vlamingh’s plate would be destroyed by the elements, and when he returned to Shark Bay he recovered the plate and had it delivered to Paris where it was presented to the Académie française in Paris. After being lost for more than a century, the Vlamingh plate was rediscovered in 1940 on the bottom shelf of a small room, mixed up with old copper engraving plates. In recognition of Australian losses in the defence of France during the two world wars, the plate was eventually returned to Australia in 1947 and is currently housed in the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle, Western Australia.
The French exploratory missions of Duperrey in 1822 on La Coquille, and Bougainville in 1824 on the Thétis, had been given instructions to make a close inspection of the Swan River area. Duperrey reported that he had not discovered a suitable site for a convict settlement and it should have been obvious that the British would raise immediate objections if a French attempt were to be made to send convicts to WA.
Duperrey, assisted by Dumont D’Urville, in 1825 presented a plan to the Minister of Marine about the possibility of establishing two colonies to be established by France for the transportation of convicts.
Captain Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont D’Urville left Toulon in April 1826 in L’Astrolabe. La Coquille was renamed to ‘L’Astrolabe’ in memory of La Perouse in 1825. He sighted Cape Leeuwin on October 1826. Two days later he dropped anchor in King George’s Sound, where the party conducted botanic research, after which he sailed eastwards.
Although D’Urville continued on to New Zealand, colonial authorities clearly had been disturbed by renewed French activity in Australian waters. The British, established on the east coast, feared the encroachment of any other European nation to the western portion of the continent. Thus, when in 1826 the French sent out an expedition under D’Urville, there was an immediate reaction from the British government leading to the establishment of the first British settlement in what was to become WA.
In March 1826, Sir Ralph Darling was ordered to forestall the French by establishing settlements at Shark Bay on the west coast of New Holland not only to found a new colony but to reinforce the British claim to this part of the continent to keep the French out.
However, Darling instead chose King George’s Sound (Albany) because of the poor reputation of the land and native people around Shark Bay.
The British were seriously contemplating annexing WA to the rest of the Australian continent. Only in 1828, again as a result of rumoured French plans for this area, steps were taken to settle the Swan River district, which had remained unsettled until early 1829. However, despite continuing fears about its vulnerability, the Colonial Office’s Parmelia sailed from London to Swan River taking the civil establishment, this time not to forestall the French but to found a colony of free settlers.
On 2 May 1829, Captain Charles Howe Fremantle took possession in the name of His Britannic Majesty of the west coast part of New Holland not included in the territory of New South Wales.
On 18 June 1829 Stirling proclaimed that His Majesty had been pleased to command that a settlement should be formed within the Territory of WA.
on 12 August 1829, a Mrs. Dance gave one blow with an axe to a large tree, christening the site Perth in honour of the Member for Perth in Scotland and the Secretary for War and the Colonies – Sir George Murray.
>
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:
>
Copyright © Perth a la Carte Pty Ltd 2014. All rights reserved. • Privacy • Terms of use
All advertising and promotions contained on this website are not implicitly or explicity directed at minors, excluded persons, or vulnerable or disadvantaged groups.
Perth @ la Carte
Press releases
Visitors since
1 August 2015 :
