L’Australie Nouvelle

Edmond Marie Marin la Meslee (1852 - 1893)

Public servant, geographer and writer born in France, son of Colonel Edmond la Meslee. On 16 January 1876 he sailed in the Alphington for Melbourne, where he became private secretary to the French consul-general for Australia, the Comte de Castelnau, F. Laporte. Marin la Meslée accompanied de Castelnau and his party by train and road to Sydney, by sea to Brisbane and on a short tour of the Darling Downs. In 1878 he became a temporary draftsman in the Department of Lands and worked in the Surveyor-General's Office. In 1879 he became a member of the Royal Society of New South Wales. On 17 January 1880 at St Michael's Catholic Church he married Clara Louisa Cooper. In that year with Russell Barton he made an extensive tour of north-western New South Wales including visits to Dubbo, Cobar and Bourke. He was primarily responsible for founding the Geographical Society of Australasia. As honorary secretary at its inaugural meeting in Sydney on 22 June 1883 he read to an audience of some 750 people his paper on Past Explorations of New Guinea and a Scheme for the Scientific Exploration of the Great Island (Sydney, 1883). In 1884 he organized the first Australian Geographical Conference in Melbourne and with A. C. Macdonald edited the society's Proceedings. In August 1886 he became a compiler in the office of the chief government statistician, T. A. Coghlan, and in 1890 was appointed to the International Exchange Board. Active in cultural circles he was a propagandist for Australia in France and became more interested than many native or British-born colonists in the growth of Australian nationality. On 17 December 1893 Marin la Meslee and his wife were tragically drowned when the Ripple capsized in Sydney Harbour near South Head.

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