AustLit

Paul Edmund de Strzelecki, KCB CMG FRGS MRS was a Polish-born explorer and geologist. After arriving in Australia he was tasked by Sir George Gipps (Governor of New South Wales) to make a geological and mineralogical survey of eastern Victoria, where he made many discoveries. Strzelecki also explored the Australian Alps with James Macarthur and James Riley, and after climbing the highest peak on mainland Australia in 1840 named it Mount Kosciuszko, to honour Tadeusz Kościuszko a national hero of both Poland and the American Revolutionary War). Between 1840 to 1842 Strzelecki explored most of the island of Tasmania and later collected specimens in northern New South Wales. He went to England after visiting China, the East Indies and Egypt and in 1845 published his Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land which was awarded in May 1846 the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.

De Strzelecki became a naturalised British subject in 1845.