Sir Paul Strzelecki

Sir Paul Strzelecki (1797-1873), Polish-born explorer who extensively surveyed southeastern Australia, and climbed and named Australia’s highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m/7,310 ft). Born in Poznań, Poland, Paul Edmund de Strzelecki had no formal scientific training but over the years developed an interest in geology. In 1830 he left Poland and traveled to Britain and later, North and South America, where he visited mining areas. In 1839 he arrived in the British colony of New South Wales, Australia, and planned a geological survey. He made several expeditions through what are now the states of New South Wales and Victoria. During his fieldwork in 1840 he climbed Mount Kosciuszko in southeastern Australia’s Snowy Mountains and named the peak for the Polish patriot Tadeusz Kościuszko. In southeastern Victoria, he named the coastal plain along Bass Strait Gippsland for Sir George Gipps, then the governor of New South Wales. He later crossed the strait and explored Van Diemen’s Land (present-day Tasmania).

Strzelecki left Australia in 1843 and spent the rest of his life in England. During the Irish famine of 1845 to 1847, he was responsible for the distribution of relief and received public recognition for this work. He published two books relating to his Australian explorations: Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Dieman’s Land (1845), which laid the foundation for Australian paleontology; and Gold and Silver (1856), written to prove his claim as the first to discover gold in Australia.