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LaPerouse, Botany Bay NSW 22 Oct, 1878 watercolour by Thomas George Glover Reproduced courtesy National Library of Australia

La Perouse is a place of firsts in Australia’s modern history. Laperouse, his officers, crew and scientists of the expedition were camped on the headland from January 26 to March 10, 1788. In that time they

established the first Garden;

made the first Geological observations;

established the first Observatory, performed the first observations and made recommendations to the English on the establishment of an observatory at Dawes Point;

celebrated the first Christian services (Catholic masses including the requiem mass for Receveur).

The French were the first to build boats, two longboats to replace those lost in the massacre of the Captain of L’Astrolabe and 11 others in Samoa.

The first mail processed in the new colony were the letters and journals of Laperouse, given to Governor Phillip on February 7.  These were dispatched on July 13 on the HMS Alexander. See link

The first Customs Station was established at La Perouse in 1822.

The first telegraph connection between NZ and the rest of the world was through La Perouse in August 1876.  The cost of telegrams was 1 shilling and 8 pence per word to Sydney and 15 shillings to England:  details at link  

It is possible that the French were the first to establish defences as they quickly built a Stockade on their arrival.  Almost a century later the English constructed a Fort on Bare Island after the first Royal Commission held to investigate the colony’s defences.  Then another Royal Commission was held to investigate the construction of that fort. Substandard materials had been used and the Colonial Architect, James Barnet, was implicated and later forced to resign.   The cost of cement together with greed, woeful supervision and the “slovenly and dishonest manner of the contractor” severely minimised the quantity of cement used in the construction so that “the concrete…was so inferior in quality as to hardly deserve the name concrete at all” (Daily Telegraph 1891, quotes from the Royal Commission).