Admiral Bruni D`EntrecasteauxPrint Page

The monument commemorates Admiral Bruni D`Entrecasteaux, a French explorer who sailed along this coast.

The French explorer, Bruni D`Entrecasteaux, was the first European to discover the channel separating Bruny Island from the mainland. In 1792 D`Entrecasteaux`s expedition sailed up the channel, now bearing his name, charting the coastline and naming features. He named the large bay at the top of the channel, North West Bay. The expedition anchored there to collect fresh water. Many aborigines were observed in the area.

The Bruni D`Entrecasteaux voyage had another purpose beyond the rescue of La Perouse. At the behest of the fledging Société D`Histoire Naturelle, the voyage was also invested with the task of recording and documenting the environment and the people of the new lands that they encountered. The expedition carried scientists and cartographers, gardeners, artists and hydrographers - who, variously, planted, identified, mapped, and marked the countries that they visited. They first visited the southern region of Tasmania in April 1792, and, desperate for water, they harboured in a bay that they later named Recherche Bay, after one of their sailing ships.

Before they departed Recherche Bay, the gardener on board the expedition, a young man called Felix Delahaye, marked out a line of stones, and planted a vegetable garden - hoping that the tradition of European agriculture would flourish, and feed the peoples of the distant country. Nine months after they resumed their search for La Perouse, Bruni D`Entrecasteaux and his fleet returned to southern Tasmania. During this visit, in 1793, they met with the local Indigenous people of the area. They also made some of the earliest ethnographic records of the language and culture of Tasmanian Aboriginals.

D`Entrecasteaux to many is merely a name. To those who witnessed the unveiling by the Governor (Sir Ernest Clark) of the monument at Gordon yesterday to perpetuate the memory of Rear-Admiral Bruni D Entreçasteaux, the French navigator and explorer, who, in 1792, sailed up and anchored in the channel which later was to bear his name, the word symbolises the discovery of Huon and Channel districts 146 years ago. The ceremony which was brought about by the cooperation of the Huon, Kingborough, Esperance, and Cygnet Municipal Councils, in conjunction with the Tasmanian Society was made impressive by a naval guard of honour, formed by the men of the French sloop Rigault de Genouilly which was anchored in the Channel, and the Tasmanian division of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve.
The Mercury (Hobart) 19th February 1938.
 

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