Meanwhile the full significance of an earlier scientific voyage to Australia, led by the French navigator Nicolas Baudin in 1801–1803, has been recognised only relatively recently, following Australian research that has restored Baudin’s reputation and that of his expedition, long painted as a failure.įrank Horner’s landmark book, The French Reconnaissance (1987), described the rich and vast collection of plant and animal specimens brought home by scientists, as well as other achievements, including production of the first comprehensive map of Australia by the cartographer Louis de Freycinet. This is one of the striking conclusions of historian Iain McCalman’s 2009 book Darwin’s Armada, which also reveals how three other key figures – Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace, friends and staunch supporters of Darwin – were similarly influenced by travels in Australasia and the southern hemisphere. Darwin had already visited the Galapagos Islands, but it was in Australia that his theory of the evolution of species by natural selection began to take shape.
On 12 January 1836, Charles Robert Darwin stepped ashore at Sydney Cove, towards the end of a five-year odyssey aboard HMS Beagle.
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