Dumont d'Urville: Explorer & Polymath

Edward Duyker was born in Melbourne to a Dutch father and a Mauritian mother. He received his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1981 before working as an intelligence officer with the Department of Defence. In 1984 he settled in Sydney as an independent historian, and also served as the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Mauritius in New South Wales 1996-2002. Edward Duyker has published 17 books, many dealing with early Australian, New Zealand and Pacific exploration and natural science. These include Citizen Labillardiere (2003), a biography of the naturalist Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardiere, which won the NSW Premier’s General History Prize in 2004; and Francois Peron (2006), which won the Frank Broeze Maritime History Prize in 2007. In 2000 Duyker was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the French government. He was awarded the Centenary Medal by the Australian government in 2003 and the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2004. He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of French Studies at the University of Sydney. He is married with two sons and is now a grandfather.