Link to YouTube - item produced 6 August 2010

Link to Petition - posted 1 August 2010

The Eastern Suburbs Cemetery Trust are proposing resumption of 60% of the Gardens, major engineering works(this is a floodplain area) with special Aboriginal and Asian cemetery areas.Previous postings in 2008 at link 1 and link 2.   Notes of the meeting provided by Daphne Lowe Kelley President of the Chinese HeritageAssociation of Australia Inc. appear below. The ESCT comprise the following: John Morrison, Rod Neville, Jack Walker, Elizabeth Fitzsimmons, Ron Greenstein, Stelios Coudounaris, Russell McLay .    

The CEO is George Passas.

Two years ago CHAA led a campaign for the retentionof these 7 hectares of Heritage-listed Chinese Market Gardens.  There was media interest including letters to the Sydney Morning Herald (at left) and articles below from Herald and Southern Courier.

Dan Cross, a Senior Environmental Officer of the Department of Lands assessed the land and published his findings in May 2008 - see this link     His assessment was that it was unsuitable for cemetery use (page 35-36) (more…)

Exhibition: 15 July 2010-16 January 2011
Open 10am–4pm Thursday to Sunday
Laperouse Museum - End of Anzac Parade, La Perouse, Sydney  For further information

(painting of L’Astrolabe and La Boussole by Robert Carter)

    At the Exhibition opening on July 13: L-R Delivering Speech- Alistair Henchman, Director Sydney, National Parks & Wildlife Service; Tom Peters, William Peters,  Joshua Jones with Bob Carr and Vic Simms.

Daily Telegraph April 30 1933, S. (Sam) J. Hood (1870-1953)  Photographer:  Father Edmund Bond celebrating Mass at La Perouse at Receveur Grave,  with the then recently built Bunnerong Power Station in background.   Link to more photographs

Below from L- R:

Scan of image of sketch with the following note on the bottom:A Plan of the Two allotments of Ground, on the North Shore of Botany Bay, released by His Excellency Sir Thomas Brisbane KCB etc etc etc to Monsr Le Baron De Bougainville Commanding His Most Christian Majesty’s Ship Thetis, for the purpose of erecting Monuments to the Memory of Count De La Perouse & Father Le Receveur. J Oxley Sgt. Sept 8^th 1825’.  Scan of image of sketch/drawing of a ‘Plan, shewing [sic] 2 areas to be transferred to the French Government’ [La Perouse Monument & Le Receveur’s Grave]. Note on reverse reads; ‘From Plan Dept of Lands, 1918′.

Over 240 people celebrated the Receveur Anniversary mass.  Fr Paul Smith OFM Minister Provincial, Francisan Friars Holy Spirit Province delivered the Homily.  Mass was con-celebrated by Father Laurie Cauchi, Parish Priest of St. Andrew’s Malabar, Father Jan Chrzczonowicz, Chaplain to the Francophone Catholic Community, amd Father Paul Ghanem, Vocations Director for the Franciscan Friars.   The first reader was Steve Caulfield from St Andrews. Also from St Andrews was June London, the commentator and organiser Lee Leo.

Photos(L-R)  Musicians graveside;  Michael Daley ( local member and Patron of the Friends of the Laperouse Museum) reading the Prayers of the Faithful; procession to the graveside.

Link to YouTube with Ed Duyker talking about his book on Labillardière.

Billardiera scandens named in honour of Labillardière is found in the National Park at La Perouse.

Time to say goodbye to some not so cuddly friends

Tim Elliott
January 23, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald - LINK TO Cann family website

All in the family … John Cann with a python in his backyard.
Photo: Kate Geraghty

  FOR A 72-year-old professional snake charmer, John Cann has done pretty well. “I only got bitten seven times,” he says. “But I certainly remember them all.”

There was the Clarence River snake that bit him on the right index finger and “made me bring up blood clots”.

Then there was the red-bellied black snake that struck the webbing of his thumb and put him in hospital for eight days. And of course, there were the tiger snakes, one of which sent him temporarily blind. (more…)

The article below, which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald November 16, 1987 and is available online, contained a number of myths/errors which unfortunately have been repeated many times since. It should be read in conjunction with the following corrections:

1)Laperouse (not La Perouse) arrived 8 years too late to claim Australia for France since Captain Cook had already done this for England in 1770. What’s more the orders Laperouse received from Louis XVI never included the claiming of ANY lands or territories for France. The Laperouse expedition was first and foremost a scientific one, with a minor commercial interest.
2) The items were part of the presentation made to Bob Carr at the opening ceremony on 25 Feb 1988, not presented in November 1987. The Deed of Gift was not presented to Bob Carr by the Hon. John Holt but by Pierre Roussel the President of the Laperouse Association for the Australian Bicentenary.
3) The restoration of the Cable Station was not carried out by NPWS but by the Dept of Public Works, Ann Warr being the architect in charge.
4) The Cable Station was built to provide a telegraph link between Australia and NZ, not a telephone link.
5) Bob Carr’s speech which he made at the opening of the Museum could not have been quoted in November 1987.

______________________________________________________________________________

Museum Reveres Frenchman Who Made It Too Late

(With thanks to Sydney Morning Herald) Monday November 16, 1987,By JOSEPH GLASCOTT, Environment Writer

Count Jean-Francois Gallaup de La Perouse, who was only a couple of days late to claim Australia for France, will be remembered with a new museum on the shores of Botany Bay.

The Australian French community yesterday presented artifacts from La Perouse’s vessels, which were ship-wrecked at Vanikoro off the Solomon Islands in 1788, to the museum.

The eight salvaged items are an altar stone, a copper pot, pewter pot, china dish, pewter goblet and Spanish, Russian and French silver coins.

They were given to the museum by the Musee de La Marine in Paris and presented to the Minister for Planning and Environment, Mr Carr, by the vice-chairman of the La Perouse Association for the Australian Bicentenary, Mr John Holt.

The museum, which will be officially opened in February, is being funded by the La Perouse Association at a cost of $800,000.

The artefacts will be the focal point of its 400 items which will include maps and documents of the La Perouse voyage.

The NSW Bicentenary Committee has provided $500,000 for restoration of the old Cable Station at La Perouse by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. It was built in 1882 for the telephone cable connection to New Zealand.

La Perouse sailed from France in two vessels, L’Astrolabe and La Boussole, in 1785 on a scientific voyage of the Pacific.

More than two years later, in one of history’s great coincidences, he appeared in Botany Bay on January 26, 1788, just a few days after the arrival of Captain Phillip and the First Fleet.

Mr Carr said La Perouse and Phillip established a warm understanding and the French commander observed the birth of the British colony for two months.

In March he set sail and was never heard of again. His two vessels were wrecked off Vanikoro in a cyclone.

Mr Carr said the Cable Station and La Perouse Museum would complement Bare Island Fort, the La Perouse Monument and the Watch Tower.

“It is important to have the La Perouse Museum on this site directly across Botany Bay from the site dedicated to the landing of Captain James Cook.

“The link between Cook and La Perouse was established when Sir Joseph Banks gave two of Cook’s navigational instruments to La Perouse for use on his ill-fated voyage.”

The Laperouse Museum (depicted in Pamela Griffiths etching) will be closed from 21st October to 9th December for repainting. The Cable Station, built in the 1870s under the direction of James Barnet will be given a contemporary look and the unique stenciling and paint scheme sympathetic to the 19th century building and the Laperouse collection will be painted over with variations on Beige with names such as ‘China Beige’, ‘Sandbar’, ‘River Reed’. The Museum is now referred to as the La Perouse Museum and Gallery. The Gallery feature will reduce space allocated to the Laperouse Collection. These decisions were taken without market research, a business plan and with the La Perouse Headland Conservation Plan of Management after more than two years still not finalised.  (See below: early depiction of celebrations at the Monument, The Unknown Pacific Room and the Mural in the Vanikoro room):

The Museum was established in 1988 as a Bicentennial Gift from France to Australia. In the following year Australia presented a bust of Laperouse, by Ante Dabro, as a Bicentennial Gift to France. There have been many exchanges associated with this site but the most memorable was in 1825, when Governor Brisbane, also a prominent Astronomer, granted land to the French explorer Hyacinthe de Bougainville for the construction of a monument to Laperouse and a Tomb for Friar Receveur, a chaplain and scientist with the expedition. The Museum collection and these two monuments distinguish the La Perouse Headland internationally.

La Perouse is the most significant site in Australia for the French and the international significance derives from their meeting here with the English on the 26th January 1788. Laperouse had set out in 1785 from Brest and landed in Botany Bay on the very day that the English were leaving to settle at Farm Cove. The meeting between the members of the expedition and the English in Botany Bay has been compared to the Russians and Americans meeting in Space during the Cold War.(Photos below of different rooms in the Museum and details of stenciling).
While camped at La Perouse, the French established the first Observatory, first Garden, celebrated the First Christian services, and made the first Geological observations. Until the establishment of the Laperouse Museum few Australians knew about this particular event. During the 1990s the Museum was a focus for further research into the Laperouse expedition, the meetings between the English and French during the six week encampment, as well as broader themes of exploration of the Pacific. But in 2002 the State Government adopted a Plan of Management for Botany Bay National Park which took a different approach to the interpretation of historical events in Botany Bay. Botany Bay has been a site of exploration featuring two of the most famous figures of the European Enlightenment, Cook and Laperouse and today is home to the largest airport and the second largest container port in Australia. But the history and present context is lost on National Parks who now insist that the site be known as the first meeting place of cultures. Interpretation in brochures, display boards, and websites promotes this theme. The latest brochure for the Park has all but erased the names of Cook and Laperouse(except where referring to places). There is no mention of Receveur. ** The front cover of the brochure states that the park “continues to hold special significance for Aboriginal communities”, a sentiment that could be expressed all over Australia. There is nothing unique in this but the French-British Meeting is unique as is the Cook Landing. The real first meeting of cultures and the first relationships between Aboriginal and British colonists occurred on Sydney Harbour. However, Sydney Harbour National Park retains the name of the man who ordered the First Fleet to Australia but Botany Bay National Park is now called Kamay Botany Bay; Kamay being a reference to the ‘Spear People’ who lived around the Cooks River.

The interior design and painting of the Laperouse museum was planned and executed by Guy de Compiegne, architect, Stanislas de Hauteclocque, art gallery owner and art expert, and Francois Olivier, artist specialising in murals and trompe l’oeil.

The significance of Laperouse and the Headland is outlined not on the National Parks website but on that of the Powerhouse Museum.

Links to: Laperouse Collection

Receveur

Dagelet’s letter to Dawes

In addition a publication about La Perouse history which National Parks refuses to distribute at the Museum because not everyone was ‘consulted’ : At the Beach

**Last year the two major items associated with the Receveur story - the Altar Stone used for the first Christian Services in Australia and for celebrating Receveur’s Funeral Mass, as well as the Eucalyptus Tree Trunk - were returned to France by National Parks without replicas being taken for display. This was done a few weeks before World Youth Day.

 Venue:  La Perouse Headland.  Choir and Altar on verandah of Laperouse Museum.

Receveur Mass organised by St Andrews, Malabar,  commences at 11.00.  Randwick City Council sponsors a marquee and chairs are provided.  Friends of the Laperouse Museum and Rotary provide assistance.

For more information on Receveur see ‘People and Places’  entry at right.