French Names Along the Australian Coastline

Introduction

French Toponymy and the Historical Geography of the Australian Coast

More than 670 French place names were assigned along the Australian coast as a result of the d’Entrecasteaux expedition (1791–1794) and the Baudin expedition (1800–1804). Today, around 360 of these names still appear on Australian maps.

Both voyages were official expeditions, authorised and funded by the French authorities. The d’Entrecasteaux expedition was approved in 1791 by the National Assembly and organised under the authority of the Ministry of the Navy; Baudin’s expedition was prepared under the Consulate with the involvement of the Ministry of the Navy and the Institut national. Both were equipped with state vessels and included naval officers, hydrographers and scientists assigned specific tasks before departure.

They took place at a time when European knowledge of the coasts of New Holland — present-day Australia — was still incomplete. Long stretches of coastline remained unknown to Europeans, while others had been only briefly examined and were represented imprecisely on maps and in atlases.

Hydrographers and the officers responsible for the surveys recorded the forms of the coastline — capes, bays, peninsulas, islands, islets and cliffs — while astronomical observations helped to determine their positions so that they could be plotted accurately on charts. The scientists studied the flora and fauna, the nature of the soils and the geology of the shores; naval officers handled navigation, examined the coasts, searched for secure anchorages and identified bays, passages and harbours capable of sheltering the ships.

In the course of this work of coastal reconnaissance and charting, place names were generally assigned as the coast was surveyed, under the authority of the commander. The Baudin expedition constitutes a remarkable exception: after Baudin’s death, much of his nomenclature was replaced by Péron and Freycinet with names selected after the voyage, with no direct connection to the circumstances of navigation or coastal survey.

The two expeditions therefore produced very different systems of nomenclature. The names assigned during d’Entrecasteaux’s voyage were closely connected with the circumstances of exploration and coastal reconnaissance. Those retained after the Baudin expedition resulted from a different process: selected largely after the return to France, they drew more heavily on the political, scientific and cultural setting of Napoleonic France than on the circumstances of geographical exploration itself.

The d’Entrecasteaux Expedition (1791–1794)

General Chart of New Holland and the Archipelagos of the Great Ocean by Beautemps-Beaupré, 1807

In Search of Lapérouse

The expedition’s primary mission — to find Lapérouse and his two missing ships — ended in failure. No trace of the expedition was found in the western Pacific.

Its second objective was to survey and chart the coasts of the southern lands that were still poorly known to Europeans. In this respect, the results were considerable, particularly after the long passage across the southern Indian Ocean.

Surveying, Charting and Naming the Coast

The expedition surveyed the eastern coasts of Van Diemen’s Land — present-day Tasmania — in April and May 1792, and again from late January to February 1793. It also explored the south-western coasts of New Holland, in present-day Western Australia, between December 1792 and January 1793.

Beautemps-Beaupré’s surveys made it possible to establish more accurately the position and form of many sections of coastline. As this work progressed, names were assigned to capes, bays, islands and other prominent features so that they could be identified on charts and in the expedition’s journals.

In all, 68 new place names were assigned along these shores. Some honoured members of the expedition; others described a landform, a feature of the landscape or a characteristic relevant to navigation. The resulting nomenclature therefore remained closely connected with the places observed and the circumstances of the voyage.

Cape Raoul

Views of Different Parts of Van Diemen’s Land: Cape Raoul and the Vertical Dolerite Columns Forming Its Extremity.
Piron, Jean; Schoeder; Beautemps-Beaupré, C. F.
In Atlas du voyage de Bruny d’Entrecasteaux (1807).

Source: National Library of Australia

The Baudin Expedition (1800–1804)

General Chart of New Holland by Freycinet, 1812

A Nomenclature Devised after the Voyage

The place names associated with the Baudin expedition and shown on the chart published by Louis Freycinet were assigned through an unusual process. Unlike many names created during voyages of exploration, most were neither chosen during the expedition nor fixed by its commander.

The nomenclature was developed after the corvettes returned to France, mainly between 1806 and 1807, several years after the voyage and after Nicolas Baudin’s death in 1803. It was established by François Péron, who was responsible for much of the publication of the scientific results, and by the naval officer Louis Freycinet, who played a major role in preparing the expedition’s charts (see “Key Figures” on the Resources page).

This post-voyage process clearly distinguishes the Baudin nomenclature from that of d’Entrecasteaux. The names do not refer only to the circumstances of coastal reconnaissance or hydrographic survey: they also reflect the political, scientific and cultural setting of France at the time when the expedition’s results were being prepared for publication.

A Nomenclature Shaped by Political Change

Between the departure of the expedition in 1800 and the publication of its results, France passed through three successive political regimes: the Directory, under which the voyage was prepared; the Consulate, during which it was carried out; and the Napoleonic Empire, under which the principal charts were prepared and published.

This political succession can be read directly in the names placed along the Australian coast. Some refer to General Bonaparte, others to the First Consul, while many commemorate Emperor Napoleon, members of the imperial family and leading figures of the regime.

The 603 place names selected by Péron and Freycinet thus reveal a marked change in the choice of names. Republican references present at the time the voyage was being prepared gradually gave way to a national and imperial nomenclature.

More than eighty per cent of these names commemorate French figures from the sciences, literature, the navy, the army, administration or political life. Capes, bays, islands, gulfs and other coastal features thus became the setting for a commemorative French geography inscribed along the Australian coast.

The expedition’s charts therefore do more than record the results of maritime reconnaissance and hydrographic surveys. They also fix upon the Australian coastline a nomenclature devised in France several years after the voyage.

New Holland, South-West Coast, Coastal Profile

Cape Marengo — spelt “Maringo” — and Cape des Représentations, a name assigned by Baudin and later replaced by Péron and Freycinet with Cape Suffren. The latter name was added in pencil above “Représentations” on the original document. The location is now known as Point Grey.
30 March 1802.
Wash drawings of the coasts of the Terres Australes by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur.

Source: Archives nationales de France.

A Geographical, Historical and Cultural Heritage

The French names that remain along the Australian coast as a result of the d’Entrecasteaux and Baudin expeditions are more than remnants of earlier cartography. They are enduring traces of French voyages in the southern seas and of the European reconnaissance of the Australian coast in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Assigned to capes, bays, islands, straits and other coastal features, these names preserve the memory of the navigators, scientists, officers, institutions and individuals after whom they were named. They also remind us that European exploration of Australia was not exclusively British and that French voyages played an important part in the reconnaissance, charting and naming of its coasts.

These place names also make it possible to trace, both on maps and in the landscape, the succession of different naming systems applied to the coast. European navigators assigned names to places that already possessed their own names, meanings and histories within Aboriginal societies.

The Australian coast can therefore be read as a space in which several geographies and several naming traditions overlap. To the Aboriginal geographies that long predated European arrival were added names introduced by Dutch navigators, followed by those assigned during British and French expeditions.

Taken together, these French place names now form a geographical, maritime and historical heritage. They allow the history of coastal reconnaissance, hydrography, charting and naming to be traced both on the ground and on maps, while also recalling the long history of maritime and scientific relations between France and Australia.