The Public Will Thank You for Your Timely Article on the Absurdity of So Many of the Names with Which Our Localities in South Australia Are Humiliated
B The public will thank you for your timely article on the absurdity of so many of the names with which our localities in South Australia are humiliated. The places so handicapped are, like the unfortunate infants christened after certain celebrities, voiceless in the matter… (Register, 25 July 1900, page 7d) Baan Hill - On section 50, Hundred of Allenby; an adjacent spring gives a good supply of water all year round; derived from the Aboriginal panau - ‘ochre’. The name was given to a pastoral run by H.S. Williams and J.T. Bagot and, on 24 June 1976, proclaimed as a recreation reserve. Babbage, Mount - B.H. Babbage discovered the mountain in 1856 and named it ‘Mount Hopeful’; in the following year it was renamed by G.W. Goyder. Babbage Peninsula, situated on Lake Eyre North was, virtually, discovered by Babbage, as opposed to Lake Eyre South which was discovered by E.J. Eyre and not named until 1963. Born in London, circa 1814, he came to South Australia in the Hydaspes in 1851. A qualified engineer he was involved in the construction of the Port Adelaide railway, entered Parliament in 1857 and resigned nine months later to command a northern exploration party. By the end of six months his explorations had scarcely penetrated beyond the limits of pastoral settlement and, consequently, both the public and the government, increasingly, became impatient at his slow rate of progress. Eventually, Major P. E. Warburton was dispatched to take over the leadership and, later, it was said that, ‘Babbage’s expedition of 1858-59 was one of the most fruitful in its detailed collection of geographical information and the minuteness of its survey work.’ The Advertiser of 24 December 1858 has a satirical poem - one verse reads: Each caviller at Babbage then A fairy land, no doubt, he’d see, We’d northward send exploring Where others saw but gravel, To find new land, or water when And geographic problems he He chose artesian boring! Most surely would unravel.
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