Recherche Bay
Encyclopedia
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and was a landing place of the d’Entrecasteaux expedition
Bruni d'Entrecasteaux
Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux was a French navigator who explored the Australian coast in 1792 while seeking traces of the lost expedition of La Pérouse....
to find missing explorer La Pérouse
Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse
Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse was a French Navy officer and explorer whose expedition vanished in Oceania.-Early career:...
. It is named after the Recherche
French ship Recherche (1787)
The Recherche was a 20-gun Marsouin class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a 12-gun frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Espérance...
, one of the expedition's ships.
French exploration
The explorers setup a camp, made a garden and scientific observatory at Recherche Bay in April 1792 for 26 days, and again in January 1793 for 24 days. Both landings were made to seek refuge and replenish supplies although as much time as possible was dedicated to scientific research. The botanists Jacques LabillardièreJacques Labillardière
Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière was a French naturalist noted for his descriptions of the flora of Australia. Labillardière was a member of a voyage in search of the La Pérouse expedition...
, Claude Riche
Claude Riche
Claude-Antoine-Gaspard Riche was a naturalist on Bruni d'Entrecasteaux's 1791 expedition in search of the lost ships of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse.Cape Riche, on the south coast of Australia, is named in his honour.-Early Life:...
and Étienne Pierre Ventenat
Étienne Pierre Ventenat
Étienne Pierre Ventenat was a French botanist born in Limoges. He was the brother of naturalist Louis Ventenat ....
, assisted by gardener botanist Félix Delahaye
Félix Delahaye
Félix Delahaye Félix's surname is variously presented as de Lahaie, Delahaie, de Lahaye, de La Haye, and Lahaie. was a French gardener who served on the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux voyage that was sent by the French National Assembly to search for the missing explorer Jean-François La Perouse.Delahaye...
, collected and catalogued almost 5000 specimen
Specimen
A specimen is a portion/quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study.BiologyA laboratory specimen is an individual animal, part of an animal, a plant, part of a plant, or a microorganism, used as a representative to study the properties of the whole population of that species or...
s including the blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus
Eucalyptus globulus
The Tasmanian Blue Gum, Southern Blue Gum or Blue Gum, is an evergreen tree, one of the most widely cultivated trees native to Australia. They typically grow from 30 to 55 m tall. The tallest currently known specimen in Tasmania is 90.7 m tall...
) which later became Tasmania's floral emblem. The expedition also made friendly contact with the Tasmanian Aboriginal people here in 1793.
The scientific observatory at Recherche Bay was the site of the first deliberate scientific experiment on Australian soil. At this observatory, geoscientist Elisabeth Paul Edouard de Rossel conducted a series of measurements that proved geomagnetism varied with latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...
.
British settlement
Being isolated from the main areas of early settlement, exposed to easterly gales, and the terrain and soils of a nature that discouraged European agriculture, Recherche Bay saw only moderate activity following the British settlement of Van Diemens Land. During the 1830s and 1840s it was the site of a bay whaling station as well as a base for pilots guiding ships up the D'Entrecasteaux ChannelD'Entrecasteaux Channel
The D'Entrecasteaux Channel is a region of water between Bruny Island and the south-east of the mainland of Tasmania. It extends between the estuaries of the Derwent, and the Huon Rivers...
. Whaling ships occasionally sheltered there to try out whales, two (the Maria Orr in 1846 and Offley in 1880) being wrecked there in gales. The main commercial activities in the later 19th century and into the early 20th century were timber-gathering, mostly centred around the township of Leprena and coal mining, the latter mostly based around the township of Catamaran. The Catamaran Coal Company employed the former barque
Barque
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...
James Craig
James Craig (barque)
The James Craig is a three-masted, iron-hulled barque restored and sailed by the Sydney Maritime Museum.-History:Built in 1874 in Sunderland, England, by Bartram, Haswell, & Co., she was originally named Clan Macleod. She was employed carrying cargo around the world, and rounded Cape Horn 23 times...
as a coal hulk there.
Recent controversy
In 2003, the private landowners of the D'Entrecasteaux expedition site sought permission to selectively log the area resulting in a large-scale campaign to protect the site from destruction.In January 2006, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy
Tasmanian Land Conservancy
Tasmanian Land Conservancy is a non-profit, non-political, non governmental organisation that acquires and manages land in Tasmania, Australia, protecting important natural places for biodiversity conservation....
(TLC) announced plans to raise a minimum of $1.3 million to purchase the site from its private owners. High profile businessman Dick Smith
Dick Smith (entrepreneur)
Dick Smith, AO is an Australian entrepreneur, businessman, aviator, and political activist. He is the founder of Dick Smith Electronics, Dick Smith Foods and Australian Geographic, and was selected as the 1986 Australian of the Year.-Electronics:In 1968, Dick Smith founded electronics retailer...
pledged A$100,000 to the cause. Two weeks later, it was announced that over $2 million had been raised to purchase and rehabilitate the site, and that it would be owned by TLC.
Quotes
It will be difficult to describe my feelings at the sight of this solitary harbour situateted at the extremeties of the globe, so perfectly enclosed that one feels separated from the rest of the universe. Everything is influenced by the wilderness of the rugged landscape. With each step, one encounters the beauties of unspoilt nature, with signs of decrepitude, trees reaching a very great height, and of corresponding diameter, are devoid of branches along the trunk, but crowned with an everlasting green foliage. Some of these trees seem as ancient as the world, and are so tightly interlaced that they are impenetrable.Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, Recherche Bay, January 1793
Further reading
- Bob Brown, Tasmania’s Recherche Bay, Published by Green Institute, GPO Box 927, Hobart, Tasmania, 7001, 2005, pp. 56, illustrations, maps, ISBN 0 646 44899 4
- Edward DuykerEdward DuykerEdward Duyker is an Australian historian and author born in Melbourne, Victoria, to a father from the Netherlands and a mother from Mauritius...
& Maryse Duyker (ed. & trans) Bruny d’Entrecasteaux: Voyage to Australia and the Pacific 1791—1793, Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2001, pp. xliii, pp. 392, ISBN 0 522 84932 6 [paperback edition, March 2006, ISBN 0 522 85232 7]
- Edward Duyker, Citizen Labillardière: A Naturalist’s Life in Revolution and Exploration (1755–1834), Miegunyah/MUP, Melbourne, 2003, ISBN 0 522 85010 3, Paperback reprint, 2004, pp. 383, ISBN 0 522 85160 6, [Winner, NSW Premier’s General History Prize, 2004].
- Edward Duyker,‘A French Garden in Tasmania: The Legacy of Félix Delahaye (1767—1829)’, Explorations, December 2004 (issued October 2005), pp. 3–18.
- Edward Duyker, ‘Uncovering Jean Piron: In Search of d’Entrecasteaux’s Artist’, Explorations, December 2005 (issued June 2006), pp. 37–45.
- John Mulvaney & Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe (eds.), Rediscovering Recherche Bay, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Canberra, December 2007, ISBN 9780908290222, paperback, pp. 156,
- John Mulvaney, The axe had never sounded’: Place, People and Heritage of Recherche Bay, Tasmania, ANU E Press and Aboriginal History, Canberra, 2007, ISBN 9781921313202 (pbk.).
- Bruce Poulson, Recherche Bay: A Short History, Published by the Management Committee of the Southport Community Centre, Main Road, Southport, 7109, second edition 2005, pp. 83, illustrations, bibliography, maps, ISBN 09757950-6
- Danielle Clode, Voyages to the South Seas: In search of Terres Australes, Miegunyah/MUP, Melbourne, 2007, ISBN 0 522 85264 5, Paperback reprint, 2008, ISBN 0522 85542 3, [Winner, The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fictionThe Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fictionThe Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction is a component of the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award and is valued at A$30,000. Most Australian state premiers present annual Australian literary awards to promote Australian writing in all its forms. The award is named after Nettie Palmer."This...
, 2007].