The eastern suburb of La Perouse, on the northern headland of Botany Bay, was named after the French navigator Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (1741-88). His expedition landed in the bay in January 1788, a few days after the First Fleet of convicts arrived from Britain to establish a colony in Australia. King Louis XVI of France had commissioned Lapérouse to explore the Pacific on a scientific voyage, inspired by the voyages of Captain James Cook. The Laperouse Monument is an obelisk built by the French in 1825 in what is now the Botany Bay National Park, overlooking Frenchmans Bay.
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