After more than 50 years in storage and almost 200 years since its discovery on the ocean floor, the original ship anchor from Lapérouse’s voyage to Australia in 1788 was unveiled at the La Perouse Museum on Friday 5 May 2023.

The anchor was used by French naval captain and explorer Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, who landed on Country in Botany Bay on January 24, 1788. On that visit he encountered Captain Arthur Philip and his crew, who were sent to establish the penal colony of New South Wales.

The Anchor – technically an Admiralty Long-Shanked Old Pattern Anchor – was one of the bow anchors used on Lapérouse’s second ship L’Astrolabe during his famous global voyage. Lapérouse and his two ships L’Astrolabe and La Boussole left France in August 1785 on a voyage to complete James Cook’s mapping of the Pacific, discover new trade routes for France, and to enrich France’s scientific knowledge as part of the Enlightenment philosophy championed by King Louis XVI.

The Lapérouse Expedition crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn, travelled down the Californian coast from Alaska and then crossed the Pacific to explore the Russian coastline and Japan. When Lapérouse landed in Kamchatka in 1787 he found new Royal Orders awaiting him – to turn south and report on the new colony planned by the British in New Holland.

He arrived in Botany Bay a few days after the First Fleet and stayed for six short weeks to rest his crew. In March the two ships departed once more, never to be seen again.

Over the next few years France sent out search and rescue missions, all of which were unsuccessful. In 1826 a merchant called Peter Dillon discovered the wreckage of a French ship off a reef of Vanikoro, one of the Solomon Islands, and reported it to the French consulate in India. A French captain Jules Dumont d’Urville formally confirmed it to be the wreck of L’Astrolabe in 1828.

The Anchor stayed amongst the wreckage until 1959 when it was salvaged, along with several other objects in the La Perouse Museum including a millstone and a brass trumpet, by a New Zealand diver named Reece Discombe. Discombe also discovered the wreck of the flagship La Boussole in 1964, which lay further along the reef to the southeast.

The French Navy gifted the salvaged Anchor to Australia in 1964 and it was displayed near the Lapérouse Monument on the La Perouse Headland. The Anchor along with the Monuments are owned by National Parks and Wildlife Service (NSW).

Unfortunately, the Anchor was vandalised in 1971, resulting in the shank being broken into two. NPWS placed the Anchor in storage where it remained until 2017 when, along with the La Perouse Museum and Headland, the Anchor was transferred to the management of Randwick City Council. Mayor of Randwick, Councillor Noel D’Souza, and NSW Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton signed the historic lease in September 2017.

In August 2021 International Conservation Services received the Anchor for treatment, and under their care the Anchor has been stabilised and conserved for ongoing display. Loose corroded pieces were removed, old paint was stripped away, and a protective coating of synthetic fish oil was applied.

The Museum was awarded a grant from the Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme (MMAPSS) in 2022. The grant was administered by the Australian National Maritime Museum and was used to produce a short film on the history of the Anchor and its ongoing story. You can see the film on YouTube here.

The Lapérouse Anchor now stands in the La Perouse Museum courtyard as tangible and moving evidence of Lapérouse and his stay here for six weeks in 1788. It is a symbol of French pilgrimage to Randwick and represents the ongoing connection between France and Australia.