This day in history: Marion du Fresne rediscovers the Prince Edward Islands in 1772

On 13 January 1772 Marc-Macé Marion du Fresne with Le Mascarin and the Le Marquis de Castries (Le Chevalier du Clesmeur) on a southern voyage of discovery that commenced in Mauritius rediscovered two islands in the southern Indian Ocean.  He named them Ile de l’Espérance (now Marion Island) and Ile de la Caverne (now Prince Edward island, after the large cave visible from the sea in Cave Bay).

What must have been these two islands were first discovered by a Dutch East Indiaman (Maerseveen, Captain Barent Barentzoon Ham) that was off its normal course over a century earlier on 4 March 1663, but they were not then plotted in their correct position.

No landings were made on either island by Marion du Fresne, likely because the next day while searching for an anchorage the two ships came together and collided.  In the collision the look-out Mathurin Le Tourneur was killed when the foremast of Le Marquis de Castries fell, thus becoming the first human fatality at the islands, nearly 200 years before the island group’s last fatality: Frank Wheeler of the R.V. Africana II who drowned off Marion on 13 April 1963.  The collision also led to the loss of a hen coop and its contents overboard.

While close to Prince Edward Island, large white spots looking like sheep were noted.  These were most likely incubating Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans, perhaps in Albatross Valley that supports some hundreds of nests.  The two ships then proceeded eastward to discover, and land on, the Crozet Islands (Julien Crozet was second in command of Le Mascarin).

The only true illustrations so far found of Marion du Fresne’s two ships are the very rough figures on a chart featured above.  It is not known to ALSA how accurate are the two ship models that were made in Mauritius and of which illustrations are shown here.  Likewise there is no known image of Marion du Fresne himself, after whom the largest of the Prince Edward Islands is now named.  All the depictions of him in existence are deemed not to be true likenesses, perhaps because he did not survive his voyage to return to France to fame – and portraiture – having been killed by Maoris in New Zealand.

The highest peak on Marion Island was renamed Mascarin after Marion du Fresne’s ship in the late 1990s.

Selected References:

Cooper, J. 2008.  Human history.  In: Chown, S.L. & Froneman, P.W. (Eds).  The Prince Edward Islands: Land-Sea Interactions in a Changing Ecosystem.  Stellenbosch: Sun PReSS.  pp. 331-350.

Cooper, J. & Headland, R.K. 1991.  A history of South African involvement in Antarctica and at the Prince Edward Islands.  South African Journal of Antarctic Research 77: 77-91.

John Cooper, Principal Investigator, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University