ETIENNE PEAU french explorer.

[aukepalmhof]

The MS from TAAF issued in 2023 shows us I believe the Port of Jeanne d’Arc on Kerguelen Island with on the road some anchored vessels, I have tried to find the name of the vessel Étienne Peau arrived on the island but without success, and the vessels have not been identified.
Wikipedia gives the following on Peau, translated by Google.

Étienne Peau
French explorer, journalist and photographer

Etienne Peau
Biography
Birth
3 December 1877
Le Havre
Disappearance
11 June 1940(at age 62)
Nationality
French
Activities
Photographer, explorer, journalist
Other information
Distinction
Death for France

Étienne Peau is a French scientist, naturalist, inventor, explorer, journalist, pioneer of underwater photography.
Summary
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Biography
Childhood and youth
Jules Edouard Étienne Peau was born in Havre (Seine Inférieure - Seine Maritime) on December 3, 1877 into a family of wealthy artisans. He is the son of Gustave Peau, master house carpenter, and his wife Ernestine Marie Allard.
He attended school in Le Havre at the Saint-Joseph Catholic Institution then at the François high school where his fellow student was the painter Raoul Dufy. He very quickly showed a great interest in technical progress and in marine life. The novel by Jules Verne "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" is his bedside book.
At the age of 16 years old, he built a small remote-controlled submarine, the IKHTHUS, which he tested on 3 June 1894 in a pond located in his father's business, in the presence of his family and many friends. On this occasion, he undoubtedly benefited from the advice of his cousin Louis Peau, hull plotter, and his brother-in-law Emile Galodée, "renowned naval architect"[ 1].
His father died suddenly in 1895 and he had to abandon his studies; he helps his mother manage his father's business but is however more motivated by his personal projects and his inventions.
Pioneer of underwater photography
He was interested in everything relating to the sea and in 1901 filed a patent for a diving suit which he named "Ichtyandre" as well as, in 1904, for a device for refloating ships. These two inventions did not come to fruition, but in 1906 he designed and built a waterproof housing for a camera, which he successfully tested in the Bay of Seine, in front of Sainte Allez. From 1907, he took the first underwater photographs in the Eastern Channel.
The brand of his camera remains unknown, but he uses a Derogy twin 60 mm, anachromatic port lens, which is the cause of the halo ("the envelope") which can be noticed in her photos. The waters of the English Channel are particularly murky; unable, to his regrets, to use electric lighting with Cooper-Hewet mercury vapor lamps, he used pyrotechnic mixtures burning in a thick crystal bell fitted with a metal tube discharging into air combustion gases. No doubt due to the lack of transparency of the water, it quickly passes from the general plan to the proxi-photograph. He captures the underwater landscapes and their inhabitants, fish, shellfish and crustaceans. He uses little stratagems to improve views; for example, he arranges pieces of fish to bait a sea spider, or cuts algae to create a perspective. He published his most successful photos in the form of black and white postcards, and at the end of 1907 he published a colorized series, probably using the artisanal technique of rehaut.
His photos are in black and white, but in 1921, he presented to the public a series of colorized slides, undoubtedly with aniline colors, a technique that he himself had recommended in one of his own publications from 1897.
He took around fifty photos in total, of which 32 have reached us[3]< /span>.
He presents his work and achievements in popular journals. He was rewarded with a silver medal at the Bordeaux Exhibition in 1907.or during conferences, including abroad. Thus, in 1909, its reception in Belgium was warm: the Bulletin of the Belgian Photography Society spoke of "good fortune" to have welcomed "an oceanographic engineer" (sic) doubled as "an intrepid diver" and the "unusual" of his conference
In 1912 he approached a French film company, whose name he withheld, to offer him the creation of a film on the underwater world; he receives no response.
He develops journalistic activity in the field of scientific and technical popularization. He edited his own periodicals and also collaborated, throughout his life, on numerous publications.
He assiduously frequented Le Havre learned societies and, in 1919, he managed, thanks to his work and although not having a university degree, to be appointed compensatory assistant curator of the Muséum du Havre.

Kerguelen Explorer
He frequently meets the Bossière brothers, Le Havre entrepreneurs who operate the fisheries of Kerguelen. He offered them his services for a scientific mission to explore the archipelago which he obtained in 1923, with the support of the government which mandated him to reaffirm France's rights to the Crozet and Amsterdam islands and the History Museum Naturelle de Paris, in the person of the professor of mineralogy Alfred Lacroix, permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences.
He could not disembark either at Amsterdam or at Crozet due to violent storms, but his exploration of Kerguelen, which lasted 100 days between December 1923 and March 1924, was a complete success. It is based in Port Jeanne d’Arc and uses fishermen’s boats to visit many sites around the island. He collects multiple meteorological information, takes samples of minerals and specimens of animals and plants which are deposited at the Muséum du Havre and the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris. All this is of great scientific interest: Professor Lacroix writes about minerals that "the collections collected by Mr. Peau teach us something new". He takes several dozen photos and shoots a film. Helped by his son Lionel who, aged 16 years old, accompanies him on his journey, he builds before setting off again on an ordeal at Port Jeanne d'Arc, "in recognition of the benefits that Divine Providence has granted us".
Philatelist (he is the owner of a philately shop in Le Havre), he takes care to send several letters during his journey, which are rarities that interest collectors[.
His mission has a certain impact. His report is deposited in the archives of the Ministry of Colonies and he delivered a series of conferences, including one in the presence of Marshal Foch. He also published the report of his trip in the specialized press.
He denounces the reckless massacres of elephant seals and fur seals committed by the Norwegian subcontractors of the Bossière brothers as well as the completely gratuitous massacres of birds, yet, as he himself writes, "the most beautiful ornament of these distant islands. His indignation provoked an awakening of conscience and as a result, in December 1924, the International Congress for the Protection of Wildlife developed a proposal calling for the creation of a national park in Kerguelen. This was done in 1925.
The success of his expedition earned him the promotion of public education officer (Palmes Acadomiques) and he was made a knight of the Star of Anjouan for Madagascar, on which Kerguelen depended at the time.
However, he ended up being forced to resign from his post as assistant curator in 1927, which plunged him into serious financial problems. Despite his requests, he no longer obtained scientific missions.

Journalist
He returned to journalism, while continuing to be interested in marine life, fishing and aquarium keeping. An admirer of Jules Verne, he sometimes uses the pseudonym "Captain Nemo" to sign his articles; his professional office is called the Nautilus. He also pursues a career as a lecturer.
He wrote in his own journals, such as from 1931 in the "Feuille Weekly", in which he published the account of his exploration of Kerguelen, a publication which was interrupted by his disappearance at the start of the Second World War.
He collaborates with other journals as a freelancer.

Disappearance
He was at his home in Le Havre in June 1940 during the German offensive and on the 11th of that month, he boarded the cargo ship with several hundred refugees NIOBE which, loaded with ammunition, tried to reach Caen. Attacked by German aircraft in the Bay of Seine, the boat exploded and disappeared in the disaster, which left more than800 dead.
His body was not found and his death was recorded by a judgment of the civil court of first instance of Le Havre on February 4, 1948 (no 466), which declared him "dead for France" on June 11, 1940. The judgment was transcribed in the Le Havre civil registry on April 14, 1948.

Posthumous recognition
His name is somewhat forgotten, especially since the bombings of Le Havre destroyed a large part of his personal archives as well as the collections deposited at the Le Havre Museum (herbarium, stuffed animals, geological specimens).
He is, however, cited as one of the first explorers of Kerguelen by Edgar Aubert de la Rüe[ and in 1952, during his third stay in Kerguelen, he gave his name to a small mountain . above sea level overlooking Port Elizabeth 674 meters
The historian James Dugan, collaborator of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, cites him among the pioneers of underwater photography, as does the professor and specialist in underwater photography Steven Weinberg, who published some of his photos.
In 1993, the journalist and writer Jean-Paul Kauffmann devoted a few pages to him in his book "L'arche des Kerguelen"
In 1994, the Quarterly Bulletin of the Normandy Geological Society and Friends of the Le Havre Museum published a long biographical article.
His hometown decided to pay tribute to him throughout 1998, which resulted in several exhibitions on his trip to Kerguelen and on his underwater photos and by conferences. His complete and abundantly illustrated biography is published in the Quarterly Bulletin of the Geological Society of Normandy and Friends of the Muséum du Havre. A stamp bearing his image is issued by the French Southern and Antarctic Territory.
The same year, the Le Havre municipal council decided to give his name to a residential road in the Hauts de Rouelles district. The deliberation qualifies him as a "journalist – inventor".
In 2000, an insect from the Amazonian forest was named by its discoverer J-F Voisin Acorep Peaui, "species dedicated to Étienne Peau, naturalist from Le Havre, pioneer of underwater photography and biological exploration of the French Southern and Antarctic Territory, unjustly forgotten".

https://fr-m-wikipedia-org.translate.go ... _tr_pto=sc

French Southern and Antarctic Territories. 2023 2.32 Euro sgMS? Scott?