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Newsletter
Map Matters newsletter seeks to enhance Australians’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the nation’s early history. The events and programs of AOTM are announced through this newsletter.
Posts
AOTM posts regular articles and interesting topics regarding maps of Australia and histories behind it. These post have been visited more than 270,000 through our website.
The Freycinet Map of 1811
The Freycinet Map of 1811 is the first map of Australia to be published which shows the full outline of Australia. It was drawn by Louis de Freycinet and was an outcome of the Baudin expedition to Australia.
Landings List
Database of selected landings on the australian coasts from 1606 to 1814 in chronological order with brief narrative of the essentials and other significant events.
About
The AOTM Division has a special focus on the early maritime contact history of Australasia, including the many fascinating aspects which are not that well known.
The broad aim is to promote the knowledge, understanding and awareness of their early cartographic and maritime history and heritage.
More specifically, the aims of the Australia on the Map are to:
- Focus on the period of sailing ships and earlier means of taking people to our shores, the hydrographic evidence of those arrivals and the related history of hydrography and cartography.
- Highlight the original Australians’ contacts with the early mariners of before the first fleet, as well as the historical and cultural implications of those contacts.
- Give due recognition to all relevant navigators’ contribution of all nationalities in the mapping of the Australasian coasts, until the time the whole coast was basically charted.
- Be outward looking, including aiming at community involvement, engaging, where relevant, with all Australians, regardless of age, creed, gender, socio-economic group or ethnicity and with kindred organisations.
- Foster promotion of Australasia’s early history internationally, where it overlaps with that of other countries.
- Help promote heritage tourism opportunities related to maritime history.
- Maintain an active body where maritime history enthusiasts, specialists and amateurs alike, can find encouragement and relevant responses.
AOTM Team
Paul Hornsby
Marianne Pietersen
Map Matters
Posts
Finding Dirk in Canberra
When you are Canberra, don’t miss the opportunity to take the Early Explorers Walking Tour in the Inner South area of the city (Griffith and Red Hill). Take a good look at the street names – which early explorers do you recognise? The Early Explorers Walking Tour was an initiative by local residents and Australia[…]
EARLY ENCOUNTERS WITH AUSTRALIAN SHORES – Rupert Gerritsen
The book “EARLY ENCOUNTERS WITH AUSTRALIAN SHORES” containing 14 easy read stories by the late Rupert Gerritsen, published by AOTM in July 2015, can now be ordered by sending a stamped self addressed envelope large enough to contain a b5 size booklet, with $3.00 ($5.00 for two) in stamps on (for destinations within Australia) ,[…]
WHY ORGANISING AN EVENT COMMEMORATING DIRK HARTOG’S 1616 VISIT – IN 2016?
In 2015 we will commemorate the end of the Second World War. We will be invited to attend the ceremonies or watch on TV as the lines of be-medalled people march by. The authorities will organise them, and millions of dollars have been allocated to be spent on the commemoration in its various forms. It[…]
Rupert Gerritsen R.O.N. (1953-2013)
Rupert Gerritsen passed away in Canberra on 3 November 2013. He was Chair of ‘Australia on the Map’ (AOTM), the Heritage and History Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society (AHS). He wrote a number of books, many scientific papers and reports and played an influential part in re-charting Australia’s maritime contact history prior to British[…]
Preface
The Freycinet map was published in Paris in 1811, and was the first map to be published which showed the full outline of Australia as such, preceding Matthew Flinders’ map ‘Terra Australis or Australia’ by three years. The Freycinet map was the product of centuries of the charting of Australia’s coasts by Dutch, English and French[…]
About the Authors
Emeritus Professor Margaret Sankey Professor Margaret Sankey’s research career in French Studies has been devoted to the study of the history of ideas and mentalités in France, with particular reference to the early modern period and the scientific revolution. She has published extensively in key areas of interest: Cyrano de Bergerac’s novels and the transmission of[…]
Message from the Ambassador of France
His Excellency M. Michel Filhol Clausewitz said that “war was politics by other means.” Hydrography too, at least at the turn of the 19th century, was politics by other means. The case of Freycinet/Flinders is a perfect illustration. Today, the echoes are muffled. Muffled but not totally silenced, so that we can imagine the vivacity of[…]
Opening Remarks – The Freycinet Map Symposium, 19 June 2011
Vice Admiral Chris Ritchie AO RANR Today’s symposium to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of the first map of Australia has been arranged through the good offices of the French Embassy here in Canberra, the National Library of Australia and the Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society. We are[…]
The Cartography of the Baudin Expedition: Louis Freycinet’s Map of New Holland
By: Margaret Sankey The initiative of Rupert Gerritsen, Chairman of the Australia on the Map division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society, in organising this symposium to celebrate the bicentenary of the publication of Louis Freycinet’s 1811 map of New Holland underscores the too often unrecognized contribution made by the French to the early exploration of[…]
Cartography as Narrative: the Maps of the Baudin Expedition
Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby Every picture tells a story, and this is no less true of maps and charts than it is of other types of images. As pictorial representations, maps and charts are in fact particularly strong sources of narrative since their common functions include reproducing the itinerary of a journey or illustrating[…]
Baudin’s naturalists in Australia: Early scientific surveys of the fauna, flora and geology of the country’s coastal regions, 1801-1803.
olf Mayer Introduction The second half of the eighteens century and the early decades of the nineteenth saw an heightened interest by European governments, particularly those of France and Great Britain, in the wider Pacific region, including Australia. More than a dozen expeditions, commanded by outstanding navigators that included James Cook, Antoine de Bruni d’Entrecasteaux,[…]
The Baudin Expedition and the Mapping of Bass Strait
Gregory C. Eccleston Monsieur l’ambassadeur de France. Mesdames, mesdemoiselles, messieurs… Bonjour !!!!!! Si nous sommes reunis aujourd’hui dans cette salle, ce n’est pas pour célèbrer l’union de deux êtres, mais belle est bien pour célèbrer le bicentenaire de la première publication de la carte de l’Australie. Je m’appelle Greg ECCLESTON. This is a brief story[…]
The Freycinets Australian connections
The Freycinets’ Australian connections Henry de Saulses de Freycinet When the French are spoken of, in or around Australia, the first name that comes to mind is “La Pérouse” or “d’Entrecasteaux”. This shows that there is a large gap in knowledge of French expeditions and involvement in the Australian history, in my view. Indeed[…]
The Freycinet map of 1811 – The first complete map of Australia?
Peter Reynders and Rupert Gerritsen The Freycinet map of Nouvelle Hollande is generally recognised as the first full map of Australia to be published. But was it the first and was it published in 1811 making this year, 2011, the bicentenary of its publication. In historical context the map is the culmination of a[…]
Exhibition
Dr Martin Woods, Curator of Maps, National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia is fortunate to have an extensive collection of printed and manuscript material, cartography, correspondence, drawings and other works produced as a result or in the course of many of the French Asia-Pacific voyages of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth[…]
The Freycinet Map of 1811: 200th Anniversary of the Publication of the First Map of Australia
Presented by Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society in association with the Embassy of France This year marks the bicentenary of the publication of the first map of Australia, compiled by French navigator and cartographer Louis de Freycinet. The map, published in Paris in 1811, showed the full outline of Australia[…]