Other NamesThe Cable StationSalvation Army HomeDates Active1988 - About
Housed in a heritage building at La Perouse in the south of our city, the La Perouse Museum is a multi-disciplinary museum that tells many stories up to the present day.
The Museum is housed in the iconic 1882 Cable Station in La Perouse, and tells the continuing stories of one of the most fascinating and important suburbs in Sydney. The collections, exhibitions, programs and events are all based around our five main themes:
the Traditional Custodians and Aboriginal community of La Perouse
European arrivals including Lapérouse and the French Connection
the Environment
Science and Communication (the Cable Station)
the Social History of La Perouse (and connections to Randwick)
La Perouse Museum is located on ‘The Loop’ at La Perouse within the Kamay Botany Bay National Park’s northern headland. The museum is housed within the historic Cable Station building, once Australia’s only link to New Zealand and the rest of the world. The La Perouse Monument, tomb of Pere Receveur, and Macquarie Watchtower (1822) are located nearby.
The Museum is situated in the middle of La Perouse Headland. The La Perouse Aboriginal Community as Traditional Custodians have had an ongoing connection with this region that pre-dates Cook's arrival by thousands of years and continues up to the present day. The traditions, arts, commerce and complex histories of the La Perouse Aboriginal Community play an important part in this identity and culture of this area.
The site on which this Museum stands was also one of the first places visited in the Sydney region by Europeans. The British First Fleet anchored near the Headland on 18 January 1788, looking for fresh water and of course to colonise this land. Incredibly just a few days later, the French scientific expedition led by the famed explorer and navigator Jean-Francois de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, also landed here. Since its opening in 1988, La Perouse Museum has been an important site of connection for French visitors.
The Museum plays an important role in the history of science and communication. It was built as a Cable Station in 1881-82 to house the two companies operating the submarine electric telegraph cable (through Morse code) between Botany Bay and Cable Bay in Nelson, New Zealand (and indirectly to the rest of the world). The Museum building is an icon of globalisation and the breaking down the barriers of geography, technology, and language, long before the age of the internet.
