Twin Peaks of Lord Howe

island The Naming of Mt. Gower

AN inquiry from a sifbscriber, Mr.

Arthur Peck, 99 Queen Street, Mel bourne, asking how Mount Gower (one of the twin peaks which dominate the southern end of Lord Howe Island) received its name, baffled editorial per spicacity and library research. Recently, however, the “Morinda” brought to Sydney Mr. Max Nicholls, an old iden tity of Lord Howe Island, who has made a long and close study of the history of L.H.I. since he first went there many years ago as schoolmaster, and he has courteously supplied the following notes.

“The island was discovered on Feb ruary 17. 1788, by Lieutenant H. Lidg bird Ball, of HM.S. ‘Supply’, who was on his way from Port Jackson to found a settlement at Norfolk Island. While still some 18 miles

off the island, he thought there were two distinct islets and named the larger Lord Howe’s Island (after the then First Lord of the British Admiral ty) and the small er Lidgbird. after himself. The fol lowing day, as his log book states, he found the land seen to be only a single island Lidgbird was a mountain mass at one end.

“The ‘Supply’ continued on to Norfolk, but on her return jour

ney, on March 13, a boat was sent ashore to examine the island. Mount Gower is mentioned in the log, but only to give the position of the vessel on the 14th.

“From the perusal of many documents and newspapers, I learned that Mt Gower was called after John Leveson Gower (1740-92), who was closely asso ciated with Lord Richard Howe at the end of the eighteenth century. He com manded the sloop ‘Kingfisher’ (1760), the ‘Africa’ (in Guinea and the West Indies, 1766), and a number of other vessels, before being appointed Ist Captain of the ‘Victory’ in 1783. The same year he was made a Junior Lord of the Admir alty. Later, he cruised around the Brit ish Isles with Prince William Henry, and was eventually raised to the status of Rear-Admiral, hoisting his flag over the ‘Edgar’.”

Incidentally, Mr. Nicholls is now in Hobart, Tasmania, He came across to Australia from Lord Howe Island to seek medical attention and, as he put it.

“the doctors advised going into dock for a time!” But he has been quite happy there—the wealth of old whaling records in Hobart has given him an opportunity to check up on some of the material he intends to use in the next edition of his little book, “Lord Howe Island, 1788- 1938”, which was published a year or two ago to commemorate the 150th an niversary of the discovery of the island. —S.H.

Mr. J. H. L. Waterhouse, who is in charge of the native school in the Rabaul district of New Guinea, and who is an authority upon certain aspects of native education, has been in Sydney for six months, undergoing a medical overhaul. As a result, he is much im proved in health, and Mr. and Mrs.

Waterhouse returned to Rabaul at the end of February. Mr. Waterhouse will resume his work immediately in the Rabaul district, where some very inter esting and apparently successful experi ments in the development of native vil lage schools are being undertaken.

Miss Dorothy Glasson, who spent a number of years at Dobu, Papua, for the Methodist Mission, died in Sydney on February 22. At the beginning of 1939, she came South to seek medical atten tion but returned to the Territory in May; it soon became apparent, however, that she would have to leave the Tropics and she retired from active missionary work to live in Sydney under the care of a trained nurse.

Lord Howe Island’s twin peaks—Mt. Lidgbird, 2,504 ft. (left) and Mt.

Gower, 2,840 ft. The small Island (at right), in the lagoon, is Rabbit Island, formerly used as a shark-fishing depot.