Paul Edmund Strzelecki - Definition and Overview

Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki (July 20 1797 - October 6 1873) was a Polish nobleman, explorer and geologist.

Born in Głuszyn near Poznań in Poland as the third child of a struggling landowner of nobility, Paul Strzelecki was educated in Warsaw and then he lived in Kraków. After the national uprising against tsarist Russia in 1830, he was forced to emigrate to London. His explorations and voyages gained him great popularity abroad. He visited North and South America, Cuba, Tahiti and New Zealand.

In 1838, at the request of George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales, he made a geological and mineralogical survey of the Gippsland region of eastern Victoria, where he made many discoveries. Later, in 1839 he set out on an expedition into the Australian Alps and he explored the Snowy Mountains with James Macarthur. In 1840 he climbed and named the highest peak in Australia Mount Kosciuszko, to honour Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Poland's national hero.

He moved back to London in 1849 where he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and a member of the Royal Society. He gained widespread recognition as an explorer as well as a philanthropist. He helped impoverished Irish families to seek new lives in Australia. He was also active in helping injured soldiers during the Crimean War (being personally acquainted with Florence Nightingale).

He received:

• an honorary degree from the University of Oxford
• the Order of St. Michael and St. George
• Knight Companion of the Bath

He wrote:

• Physical Description of New South Wales. Accompanied by a Geological Map, Sections and Diagrams, and Figures of the Organic Remains (London, 1845).