Who was Francois Peron?

Francois Peron (1775 - 1810) was a French naturalist and explorer. In 1801 he travelled to Australia as a naturalist on the expedition of Nicolas Baudin who, under instruction by Napoleon Bonaparte, led a voyage of discovery that contributed significantly to the knowledge of not only Shark Bay, but of much of Australia. The expedition first landed in Shark Bay in 1801 and then again in 1803 on their return journey after mapping much of southern Australia including Tasmania.

In 1801 they spent 70 days in Shark Bay exploring, mapping and naming many features of the bay, some after Péron himself, including Cape Peron and Peron Peninsula. Landing parties from their boat, Le Géographe made excursions to different parts of the peninsula, taking 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.

These side trips were not without misadventure however and his habit of becoming lost while exploring was a constant source of irritation to Baudin. In March 1803 Peron, after persuading his colleagues to cross the peninsula from east to west, again became lost. When they eventually returned to the ship in a very stressed state, Peron begged Baudin to allow him to rest as he "could hardly talk and remain standing". Unimpressed, Baudin wrote in his journal that night:

And yet it was François Péron who lived to return to Paris and was given the task of writing up the scientific accounts of the expedition. Poor Baudin died of tuberculosis during the return voyage.

Peron, along with the artist Charles Alexandre Lesueur, collected over 100,000 zoological specimens representing almost 4,000 species, one of the greatest achievements in scientific history. Of these, more than 2,500 were new to science. Péron unfortunately died of tuberculosis before publication of the second volume of their findings.