Alphonse Pellion

Alphonse Pellion, artist and naval draughtsman, was a midshipman aboard l'Uranie on Louis de Freycinet's three-year scientific and ethnographic expedition around the world in 1817-1820. Pellion assisted the official artists, Arago and Taunay. On 12 September 1818, l'Uranie reached Shark Bay, WA, where the crew established a camp, depicted by Pellion as Baie des Chiens Marins, Camp de L'Uranie. The expedition sailed for Timor a fortnight later, and on 18 November 1819 sailed into Port Jackson, where the men were welcomed by Governor Macquarie. He entertained them at both Sydney and Parramatta and allowed artists and scientists alike to wander at will. William Lawson guided the surgeon-zoologist Quoy and the botanist Gaudichaud-Beaupré on an expedition over the Blue Mountains to Bathurst along Cox's road. De Freycinet had intended Arago to accompany them, but his place was taken by Pellion 'whose zeal, activity and courage never failed him in dangerous enterprises, and whose talents as a draughtsman rendered him equally proper for this mission'.