DUMONT D'URVILLE, JULES SEBASTIEN CESAR (1790-1842) was born at Condé-sur-Noireau, Normandy, the son of a pre-revolutionary official. He was brought up by his mother and his uncle, the Abbé de Croisilles, and, having failed to pass the entrance examination for the Polytechnique, he went to sea in the Aquilon. Apart from his professional education he studied deeply both languages and science, and received steady promotion. In 1820, while serving in the hydrographic vessel Chevrette, he recognised the Venus de Milo when it was excavated, and his report led to its acquisition by the French Government for the Louvre. Appointed second in command of the corvette Coquille, he took an active part in the circumnavigation of the world in 1822-25, in the course of which the vessel took G. Clarke to New Zealand and spent a fortnight at the Bay of Islands (Apr 1824). Promoted frigate captain, he was given command of an expedition which sailed from Toulon in the Coquille, now renamed Astrolabe, in 1826 to search the Pacific ocean for relics of La Perouse. It was on this voyage that d'Urville did the greater part of the work that made him, after Cook, the most important scientific explorer of the New Zealand coast before the systematic surveys of Stokes and Drury. He left Sydney on 19 Dec 1826. Unable by reason of adverse winds (Jan 1827) to visit the southern portions of the islands passed over summarily by Cook he made for Tasman Bay, the southern shores of which he carefully investigated and charted, bestowing many names which have survived, and discovered French Pass. His passage of the Pass into Admiralty Bay, after a five days' struggle (28 Jan 1827) consummated one of the most dangerous feats of navigation in New Zealand history. His own name was given to D'Urville Island by his officers. He now sailed through Cook Strait; wishing to explore the Cloudy Bay area, but driven off again by wind and current, passed along part of the northern coast of the strait and up the east coast of the North Island, calling at Tolaga Bay (5 Feb) and having much amicable converse with the natives. Bad weather off the East Cape and in the Bay of Plenty made it impossible for him to add rectifications to Cook's chart, as he had wished, and he narrowly escaped going on a reef in the Bay (16 Feb). Further north conditions were more favourable; d'Urville named the D'Haussez islands, off Mercury Bay, was driven north to Whangarei, and then made a careful investigation of the western side of the Hauraki gulf, exploring the Waitemata harbour, sending a party overland to Manukau, and sailing down the Waiheke channel. He assumed that here he was the first discoverer; the honour, however, belongs to Marsden. Leaving the gulf, d'Urville sailed north again, and after a week at the Bay of Islands spent in native and botanical researches sailed for the Pacific islands on his La Perouse mission. His charts of the New Zealand coast are most detailed and admirable, though chance deprived him of filling in all the gaps left by Cook. His account of New Zealand is charming and sympathetic; and the published account of the voyage (Voyage de la corvette l'Astrolabe, 1830-35) provides not only a volume of narrative and description devoted to the country, but one of illustrative documents drawn from the most valuable sources.

In the Pacific he carried out a very successful scientific cruise and recovered at Vanikoro further relics which were deposited (with those brought by Peter Dillon) in the Musée de Marine. Promoted on his return in 1829, d'Urville conducted to England the French King (Charles X) and his family seeking refuge from the revolution of July 1830. His plans for another voyage to the south were frustrated by the criticisms of Arago and others until 1837 when, with the approval of Louis Philippe, he sailed in command of the Astrolabe and Zélée. After a long investigation of the Antarctic continent, in which he discovered and named Joinville Island and Louis Philippe Land, d'Urville sought refreshment in Chile. Proceeding then westward by way of Fiji, the Pelew islands and Borneo, they left their sick at Hobart and, returning to the Antarctic, discovered Adelie Land (named after his wife) and Claire Land. In April 1840 d'Urville was in New Zealand waters again. He visited Otago harbour and Akaroa and charted carefully the greater part of the east coast of the South Island, but did no further scientific work on the North Island. At the Bay of Islands he was, as a Frenchman, received somewhat suspiciously by the English and, though not unamused, found much to censure in their activities. Strongly interested in the native race, he bitterly regretted the degradation brought by western habits. On his return to France he was promoted rear-admiral and received the gold medal of the Society of Geography. Shortly after his return in 1840 appeared the first volume of d'Urville's Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l'Océanie. He was killed in a railway accident on 8 May 1842 and the completion of this 10 volume work was entrusted to his subordinate Vincendon Dumoulin. D'Urville also published his Voyage Pittoresque autour du Monde, into which he weaves the narratives of many of his predecessors with his own (two vols, 1839, 1846).

L. I. Duperrey, Voyage Autour du Monde ... 1822-25; d'Urville, op. cit.; Hocken, Bibliog.; Beaglehole, Discovery of New Zealand (p); S. Percy Smith, translations in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xl, 416-47, xli, 130-9, xlii, 412-33; R. P. Lesson, Notice historique sur l'Amiral Dumont d'Urville (1846); Larousse.

Reference: Volume 2, page 273

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