Baudin ExpeditionPrint Page

The bust of Nicholas Baudin commemorates the bicentennial of the expedition 1800 - 1803. This bust was erected to mark the expedition’s mapping of that strip of coast on 27th May 1801, near Cape Hamelin, named for Baudin’s second-in-command, Emmanuel Hamelin, captain of the Naturaliste. The bust was originally presented in 2003.  

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.

The expedition reached Australia in May 1801. 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, where Baudin bought a new ship Casuarina . From there he sent Naturaliste back to France, carrying all the specimens that the expedition had collected to that point. From Sydney, the remaining ships headed to Tasmania, before continuing north to Timor. On their way home the ships stopped in Mauritius, where Baudin died of tuberculosis.

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