Félix Delahaye

Félix Delahaye (1767–1829) was a French gardener who served on the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux voyage (1791–93) that was sent by the French National Assembly to search for the missing explorer Jean-François La Perouse. He was also one of the earliest European gardeners to work in Australia.

Delahaye was one of many gardener-botanists employed on European colonial voyages of scientific exploration in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Their duty was to assist with the collection, transport, cultivation and distribution of economic plants. They worked with the naturalists on these expeditions, but gave particular assistance to the botanists by collecting live plants and seed, as well as plant specimens for herbarium collections. They often maintained journals and records of their collections and made observations on the vegetation encountered during the voyage. On this particular expedition, Delahaye assisted the naturalist and botanist Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière—who accumulated one of the largest herbarium collections of that era and published what was, in effect, the first Flora of Australia based on the collections he made on the New Holland (Australian) leg of the expedition. Delahaye also made numerous botanical collections of his own.

On returning to France Delahaye eventually became Head Gardener to Empress Josephine at the Château de Malmaison.

Early life

Félix Delahaye was the son of Normandy labourer Abraham Delahaye and his wife Marie-Anne-Élisabeth Sapeigne who lived in the village of Caumont (Seine-Maritime) about 20 kilometres from Le Havre.