Ian Hutton, The Lord Howe Island Signal
Throughout 2025, the Lord Howe Historical Society has been working on a project to enhance the Island cultural history – a Place Names Map.
Since the Island’s discovery in 1788, a few place names have remained constant whilst others have changed depending on the era. Place names have an essential value in communicating information about locations – hills, mountains, bays, beaches, rocks, valleys and so on.
The first sailors that came ashore in 1788 made a rough sketch map of the Island and names were only given to the most prominent mountains, bays and headlands. Many of the early names are those connected with people in the British navy at the time – e.g. Lord Howe Island, Mount Lidgbird, Mount Gower, Hunter Bay.
With settlement of the Island in 1834, residents were exploring and using the Island in different ways so they added many names to the local list, and these often reflect the usage at the time – e.g. Signal Point, Flagstaff, Andrew’s Farm, Eddie’s Cave, Mother Nichols’ Rock, The Aloes.
As the population grew, more parts of the forest were cleared and productive fruit and vegetable gardens were established. Many of these were also given specific names – Banyan Garden, Morepork Garden, Onion Garden, Hines Garden, etc. As the economy changed, and shipping improved, the Island became less self-sufficient, and some of these gardens were abandoned. Quite a few have been used as sites to contruct new dwellings while some others were reclaimed by native vegetation, with their earlier names disappearing.
A number of Island residents have assisted the Lord Howe Historical Society to identify these early place names. Clive Wilson was able to identify many fishing spots that are no longer in general use. In times past, before power boats were available, people often fished in the lagoon from places to which they could easily row.
Fish was a far more important part of the diet as the supply ship only called intermittently. Refrigeration was non-existent until the first freezer was installed at Thornleigh (Dignam’s residence) about 1935, so fishing was almost a daily necessity. Various lagoon fishing spots were known by the names of those who used them frequently – such as George Nichols Hole, Mable’s Hole, Blunts Hole, Baxter’s fishing Place and many more.
With power boats coming into wider use, residents now go beyond the lagoon to catch fish and the old fishing spots are rarely used. Some areas are now Sanctuary Zones inside the Lord Howe Island Marine Park and many of the earlier names have been forgotten.
The disappearance of these older place names, intimately linked to the earlier Island community, prompted the Museum Committee to undertake a project to identify the older place names and to pinpoint their exact location. This would give current and future residents and researchers the knowledge, not just of the place name itself and its location, but of who was associated with it, what activities were going on at the time, and any stories connected with it, thus reviving a deeper sense of the history of people who came before us.
With a great deal of help from Island elders, the project aimed to identify these various locations and then produce a poster map showing their accurate locations, so that the present and future generations of Islanders have continued access to their history. The next step in the process, is to post the stories surrounding these place names (including their origins) on the Lord Howe Island Museum website.
The LHI Museum Committee is very appreciative of the help given by Clive Wilson, Gower Wilson, Bruce Thompson, Craig (Macca) Wilson, Campbell Wilson, Dean Hiscox and Nelson Retmock. We thank Dick and Pip Smith who sponsored the preparation of the map by Brisbane map maker Gavin James; and John MacLulich who prints all our Museum publications.
An official launching of the map will take place in the first week of January, 2026, at the Museum, when it will go on sale.
This article appeared in The Lord Howe Island Signal, 31 December 2025.
