Nicolas-Thomas Baudin (17 February 1754 – 16 September 1803) was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer.
Thomas Nicolas Baudin was born in 1754 and joined the French Navy in 1774. Between 1801 and 1803, under instruction by Napoleon Bonaparte, he led a voyage of discovery that contributed significantly to knowledge of not only Shark Bay, but of much of Australia. More than 100,000 specimens of Australian fauna and flora were collected, representing almost 4,000 species. Of these, more than 2,500 were new to science.
In 1801 Baudin’s corvettes Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste spent 70 days in Shark Bay. The ships’ companies explored, mapped and named many features of the bay, including Bernier Island, named for the expedition’s astronomer; Bellefin Prong, named for Le Naturaliste’s surgeon; and Heirisson Prong, named for Le Naturaliste’s sub-lieutenant. The navigator-surveyor Louis de Freycinet named Henri Freycinet Harbour for his brother; Le Géographe’s artist Lesueur is honoured with Cape Lesueur; and the expedition’s naturalist, François Péron, explored the peninsula that now bears his name. Nicolas Baudin portrait © National Library of Australia.
The ships initially selected by the French Ministry of Marine were two corvettes and a third vessel as a store ship. However, these were rejected by Baudin as being in poor condition and replaced.
The vessels Baudin chose were the corvette Galatee - renamed Le Geographe - and a storeship Menacarte - Le Naturaliste. Both ships were about 350 tons, similar to the Investigator, but considerably longer.
It was during a trip to Dirk Hartog Island that the commander of Le Naturaliste, Emmanuel Hamelin, discovered the plate left by Willem de Vlamingh in 1697. Believing it sacrilegious to remove the plate, Hamelin instead nailed a lead plate recording his own visit to another post on the northeast side of the island. (The post and plate have never been found.) But de Freycinet feared de Vlamingh’s plate would be destroyed by the elements, and when he returned to Shark Bay in 1818 he recovered the plate and had it delivered to Paris.
After surveying Tasmania and Australia’s entire southern coast, the expedition returned to Shark Bay in March 1803. Landing parties from Le Géographe made excursions to different parts of Peron Peninsula. Péron himself crossed from east to west, making notes on fauna, flora and the Malgana Aboriginal people. His were the first written descriptions of the Malgana to be presented to the outside world. His habit of becoming lost while exploring was a constant source of irritation to Baudin, yet it was Péron who lived to return to Paris and begin writing the accounts of the expedition. Baudin died of tuberculosis in Ile de France (Mauritius) in 1803.
A number of monuments have been established around Australia, including eight at various locations around Western Australia.
Wikipedia
http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/encounter/baudin/ships.htm