South West Life

Conflicting accounts and mystery surround the death of Timothee Vasse.

In 1801 two French sailing ships, the Geographe and the Naturaliste, were skirting the south west coast on a botanical expedition collecting specimens and mapping the area. Thomas Timothee Vasse (commonly known as Timothee Vasse) was an assistant helmsman aboard the Naturaliste who disappeared one stormy night. Or did he?

The ship's logbook records that on 8 June 1801 the Geographe was in Deadwater Bay, which today is a stretch of water at Wonnerup, east of Busselton. As it often does at that time of year, the weather deteriorated into a storm and made life difficult for the expedition team that was landing and leaving the shore in dinghies. A group of scientists became stranded, and Vasse was aboard a dinghy that set out in the rough seas to rescue them.

Unfortunately the rescue dinghy was swamped in the pounding surf, and another one had to be sent out to rescue them. Vasse was known to be a strong swimmer, but it is reported that he was swept away as he tried to board the rescue craft. It was around 6pm - dark and stormy with little hope of finding people lost at sea. He was left for dead and the dinghy returned to the Naturaliste where it and the Geographe sailed away to safety.

And that's where the story would have ended, except that a local Aborginal tribe had more to say. The Wardandi tribe reported almost 40 years after the shipwreck that Vasse had made it to shore and they had cared for him. As to be expected, Vasse had little or no survival skills that were relevant for the Australian bush, so he relied heavily on their generousity. It appears though, that this wasn't enough.

Vasse desperately kept a lookout for his ship. Knowing that the two ships were on a botanical expedition, he was often seen wandering along the shore, staring out to sea, in the hope one of the ships would pass by again and rescue him. The story goes that he did this for 2 years, all the while getting slowly thinner and thinner, until one day when the Wardandi tribe came back from walkabout they found him dead. The cause of death was unknown but you can be fairly sure the contributing factors were a lack of survival skills and perhaps a heart burdened by despair.

The Aboriginal story is only one clue as to the circumstances surrounding Vasse's death. Another account is that Vasse was eventually rescued by American whalers, only to be taken prisoner by the British and eventually imprisoned in Britain. Historians have been unable to find any evidence of this either, so the true story may never be known.

Our knowledge of Australian history focusses a lot on British events, but there is a wealth of rich history that involves other nations such as the French, particularly in the south west. Just taking a look at some of the local names such as Cape Naturaliste, Geographe Bay, Leschenault, Point Peron and Point Cuvier proves that.