Person

Baudin, Nicolas Thomas (1754 - 1803)

Born
19 February 1754
St-Pierre-de-Ré, France
Died
16 September 1803
Mauritius
Occupation
Navigator and Explorer

Summary

Nicolas Baudin explored the western and southern coasts of Australia between 1800 and 1803 in the ships Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste.

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Details

Born St-Pierre-de-Ré, France, 19 February 1754. Died Mauritius, 16 September 1803. Mercantile marine; naval cadet 1774-1786; sub-lieutenant 1786; seconded to the Archduke Francis of Austria; in charge of a scientific expedition to the Indian Ocean 1792; scientific voyage to the West Indies 1796; led expedition to complete the French cartographic survey of the coast of Australia and conduct other scientific investigations 1800-1803.

Chronology

1976
Taxonomy event - Baudin was honoured with the naming of Eucalyptus baudiniana D.J.Carr & S.G.M.Carr

Related People

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

  • Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia

  • Thomas Nicolas Baudin - Records, 1807 - 1824, LBWA/282A; JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia. Details

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

  • New South Wales Colonial Secretary's Office - Records, 1799 - c. 1930, ML MSS 681; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Philip Gidley King - Records, October 1802 - January 1808, ML MSS 582; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Nicolas Baudin - Records, 1800 - 1804, B1261-1281 and A3061-A3069; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Nicolas Baudin - Records, 1801 - 1803, MS 215 and MS Q499-502; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
  • Thomas Nicolas Baudin - Records, 1800 - 1804, ML MSS 760; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

  • Thomas Nicolas Baudin - Records, 1800 - 1804, Mfm G 2155 -2188; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

  • Thomas Nicolas Baudin - Records, 1798 - 1804; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

State Records of South Australia

  • Thomas Nicolas Baudin - Records, 1800 - 1804, ARG 1/19; State Records of South Australia. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Books

  • Barker, Victor, Baudin's last breath (Snug House Publishing, 2005). Details
  • Baudin, Nicolas, The Journal of Post Captain Nicolas Baudin, Commander-in-Chief of the Corvettes Geographe and Naturaliste (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1974), 629 pp. Details
  • Fornasiero, Jean, Lawton, Lindl and West-Sooby, John, The art of science: Nicholas Baudin's voyages 1800 - 1804 (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2016), 175 pp. Details
  • Fornasiero, Jean, Monteath, Peter and West-sooby, John, Encountering Terra Australis: the Australian Voyages of Nicholas Baudin and Matthew Flinders (Kent Town, S.A.: Wakefield Press, 2009), 425 pp. Details
  • Fornasiero, Jean; and West-Sooby, John, "Roaming freely throughout the universe": Nicholas Baudin's voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science (Mile End, S.A.: Wakefield Press, 2021), 340 pp. Details
  • Leschenault, Théodore: translated by Paul Gibbard, The French collector: journal and letters of Théodore Leschenault, botanist of the Baudin Expedition (Crawley, W.A.: UWA Publishing, 2023), 350 pp. Details
  • Plomley, N. J. B., The Baudin Expedition and the Tasmanian Aborigines, 1802 (Hobart: Blubber Head Press, 1983). Details
  • Starbuck, Nicole, Baudin's scientists in Sydney: Baudin, Napoleon and the exploration of Australia (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013), 208 pp. Details
  • Toft, Klaus, The Navigators: Flinders vs Baudin: the Race Between Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin to Discover the Fabled Passage through the Middle of Australia (Sydney: Duffy and Snellgrove, 2002), 354 pp. Details
  • Williams, Glyn, Naturalists at Sea: Scientific Travellers from Dampier to Darwin (New Haven, Connecticut/London: Yale University Press, 2013), 309 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Eccleston, Greg, 'The Baudin Expedition and the Mapping of Bass Strait' in The Freycinet Map of 1811: Proceedings of the Symposium Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Publication of the First Map of Australia: Louis de Freycinet (1779 - 1841), Gerritsen, Rupert, King, Robert and Eliason, Andrew, eds (Acton (A.C.T.): Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society, 2012), pp. 58-73. Details
  • Fornasiero, Jean and West-Sooby, John, 'Cartography as Narrative: the Maps of the Baudin Expedition' in The Freycinet Map of 1811: Proceedings of the Symposium Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Publication of the First Map of Australia: Louis de Freycinet (1779 - 1841), Gerritsen, Rupert, King, Robert and Eliason, Andrew, eds (Acton (A.C.T.): Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society, 2012), pp. 20-32. Details
  • Fornasiero, Jean and West-Sooby, John, 'Naming and Shaming: the Baudin Expedition and the Politics of Nomenclature in the Terres Australes' in European Perceptions of Terra Australis, Scott, Anne M., Hiatt, Alfred, McIlroy, Claire and Wortham, Christopher, eds (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 165-84. Details
  • Hughes, Miranda, 'Tall Tales of True Stories? Baudin, Peron, and the Tasmanians, 1802' in Nature in its Greatest Extent: Western Science in the Pacific, Roy MacLeod and Philip F. Rehbock, eds (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988), pp. 65-88. Details
  • Hughes, Miranda J., 'Philosophical Travellers at the Ends of the Earth: Baudin, Peron and the Tasmanians' in Australian Science in the Making, R. W. Home, ed. (Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 23-44. Details
  • Marchant, Leslie R.; Reynolds, J. H., 'Baudin, Nicolas Thomas (1754-1803)' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 71-73. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010067b.htm. Details
  • Mayer, Wolf, 'Baudin's Naturalists: the Earliest Survey of the Fauna, Flora and Geology of Australia's Coastal regions, on Land and in the Sea' in The Freycinet map of 1811: Proceedings of the Symposium Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Publication of the First Map of Australia: Louis de Freycinet (1779 - 1841), Gerritsen, Rupert, King, Robert and Eliason, Andrew, eds (Acton (A.C.T.): Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society, 2012), pp. 33-57. Details
  • Sankey, Margaret, 'The Cartography of the Baudin Expedition: Louis de Freycinet's Map of New Holland' in The Freycinet Map of 1811: Proceedings of the Symposium Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Publication of the First Map of Australia: Louis de Freycinet (1779 - 1841), Gerritsen, Rupert, King, Robert and Eliason, Andrew, eds (Acton (A.C.T.): Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society, 2012), pp. 2-19. Details

Edited Books

  • Bonnemains, Jacqueline, Forsyth, Elliott and Smith, Bernard eds, Baudin in Australian waters: the artwork of the French voyage of discovery to the southern lands 1800-1804 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1988), 347 pp. Details
  • Fornasiero, Jean ed., Reflections of a philosophical voyager: Nicolas Baudin letter to Philip Gidley King, 24 December 1802 (Adelaide: Friends of the State Library of South Australia Inc, 2016), 46 pp. Details
  • Fornasiero, Jean, Lawton, Lindl and West-Sooby, John eds, The art of science: Nicolas Baudin's voyage 1800-1804 (Mile End, S.A.: Wakefield Press, 2016), 176 pp. Details
  • Horner, F. B. ed., The French Reconnaissance: Baudin in Australia 1801-1803 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1987), 461 pp. Details
  • Thomas, Sarah ed., The Encounter, 1802: Art of the Flinders and Baudin Voyages (Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2002), 228 pp. Details

Journals

  • 'The Baudin Expedition 1800-1804: Texts, Contexts and Subtexts', Australian Journal of French Studies, 41 (2), 2004. Details

Journal Articles

  • Bréelle, Dany, 'The hydrographic work of the engineer-geographers of the Baudin expedition and the rise of Louis Freycinet as the cartographer of the voyage', The great circle, 39 (2) (2017), 86-119. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26381274. Details
  • Fornasiero, Jean and West-Sooby, John, 'The Narrative Interruptions of Science: The Baudin Expedition to Australia, 1800-1804', Forum for Modern Language Studies, 49 (2013), 457-71. Details
  • Giblin, R.W., 'Flinders, Baudin and Brown at Encounter Bay', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania (1929), 1-6. Details
  • Harrison, Carol E., 'Projections of the Revolutionary Nation: French Expeditions in the Pacific, 1791-1803', Osiris, 24 (2009), 33-52. Details
  • Jansen, J. J. F. J., 'Towards the resolution of long-standing issues regarding the birds collected during the Baudin expedition to Australia and Timor (1800 - 1804): the discrepancy in the number of birds collected and their subsequent handling', Journal of the National Museum (Prague), natural history series, 185 (2016), 7-19. Details
  • Jansen, J. J. F. J., 'Towards the resolution of long-standing issues regarding the birds collected during the Baudin expedition to Australia and Timor (1800 - 1804): specimens still present and their importance to Australian ornithology', Journal of the National Museum (Prague), natural history series, 186 (2017), 51-84. Details
  • Jones, Diana S., 'A lasting legacy: the Baudin expedition in Australian waters (1801 - 1803)', The great circle, 39 (2) (2017), 56-85. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26381273. Details
  • Kingston, Ralph, 'A Not So Pacific Voyage: the "Floating Laboratory" of Nicholas Baudin', Endeavour, 31 (4) (2007), 145-151. Details
  • Konishi, Shino, 'The "brilliant shells" of Shark Bay: the emotions of shell-collecting', Studies in Western Australian history, 35 (2020), 21-36. Details
  • Lipscombe, T., 'Two Continents or One? The Baudin Expedition's Unacknowledged Achievements on the Coast of Victoria', Victorian Historical Journal, 78 (2007), 23-41. Details
  • Marchant, Leslie R., 'The Baudin Scientific Mission of Exploration and the French Contribution to the Maritime Discovery of Australia', Globe, 23 (1985), 11-31. Details
  • Mayer, Wolf, 'The Geological Work of the Baudin Expedition in Australia (1801-1803): the Mineralogists, the Discovery and the Legacy', Earth Sciences History, 28 (2009), 293-324. Details
  • O'Brien, Patty, 'Divine Browns and the Mighty Whiteman: Exotic Primitivism and the Baudin Voyage to Tasmania in 1802', Journal of Australian Studies, 63 (1999), 181-183. Details
  • Plomley, N.J.B., 'The Baudin Expedition and the Tasmanian Aborigines in 1802', Margin, 22 (1990), 4-12. Details
  • Sankey, Margaret, 'Writing the Voyage of Scientific Exploration: the Logbooks, Journals and Notes of the Baudin Expedition (1800-1804)', Intellectual History Review, 20 (2010), 401-13. Details
  • Stresemann, Erwin, 'Type localities of Australian birds collected by the Expedition Baudin (1801 - 1803)', Emu, 51 (1951), 65-70. Details
  • West-Sooby, John and Fornasiero, Jean, 'Matthew Flinders through French eyes: Nicholas Baudin's lessons from Encounter Bay', Journal of Pacific History, 52 (1) (2017), 1-14. Details

Resources

Reviews

  • Thomas, Sarah (ed.), The Encounter, 1802: Art of the Flinders and Baudin Voyages, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2002, 228 pp.
    Moyal, Ann, 'Review', Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (2), (2002), 237-241. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR02011. Details

Theses

  • Jansen, J. J. F. J., 'The ornithology of the Baudin Expedition (1800 - 1804)', PhD thesis, Leiden University, 2018. Details

See also

  • Leschenault, Théodore: translated by Paul Gibbard, The French collector: journal and letters of Théodore Leschenault, botanist of the Baudin Expedition (2023)
    Barker, Robyn, 'Baudin's botanist', Australasian Systematic Botany Society newsletter, 197/8, (2024), 49-52. Details
  • Brosse, Jacques; translated by Hochman, Stanley, Great voyages of exploration: the golden age of discovery in the Pacific (Lane Cove, N.S.W.: Doubleday Australia, 1983), 228 pp. Details
  • Fishburn, Matthew, 'Dwarf emus from Baudin's voyage (1800 - 1804): an overlooked engraving by Nicholas Huet (1770 - 1830)', Archives of natural history, 49 (2) (2022), 285-97. https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2022.0791. Details
  • Fishburn, Matthew, 'A crimson rosella for Josephine', Journal of the history of collections, 34 (2) (2022), 249-58. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhab019. Details
  • Hall, Norman, Botanists of the Eucalypts: short biographies of people who have named eucalypts, whose names have been given to species or who have collected type material (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1978), 101 pp. Details
  • Milius, Pierre Bernard: Pratt, Kate trans., Pierre Bernard Milius, Last Commander of the Baudin Expedition: the Journal, 1800-1804 (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2013), 379 pp. Details
  • Steven, Margaret, First Impressions. The British Discovery of Australia (London: British Museum (Natural History), 1988), 96 pp. References on pages 72 and 73. Details

McCarthy, G.J. & Walsh, N.

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 12 February 2018

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