37 Islands In

Search Of A

New Name

The 37 islands and atolls of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony—369 square , j . . miles of land in two million square miles of ocean — are in search of a new name.

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HE present name, according to an official document pub lished recently on constitional advancement, is considered to be “not entirely accurate, rather cumbersome and to emphasise dependency”.

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony consists of the 16 Micro nesian atolls in the Gilbert Group, the nine Polynesian atolls in the Ellice Group, eight islands in the Phoenix Group (no permanent inhabitants), isolated Ocean Island, and three islands in the Line Islands—Christmas, Fanning and Washington.

The name Gilbert Islands was first applied to that group in 1824 by the Russian hydrographer A.

J. Krusenstern, in honour of Captain Thomas Gilbert who dis covered a number of them in 1788.

The name Ellice Islands was

given to the nine islands in that group in 1851 by the British hydrographer A. G. Findlay. But it had first been applied solely to the atoll of Funafuti by Captain A. S. de Peyster in 1819.

The two groups became a pro tectorate of Great Britain in 1892 and a colony in 1916. The other islands were added at various times.

The colony is sometimes known irreverently as the “Gilbert and Sullivans”.

An attempt to find a less cumbersome official name for it was made at a meeting of district officers in the mid-1930’5.

One of the officials present was Mr. H. E. Maude, now with the Department of Pacific History at the Australian National Uni versity, Canberra, who recalls that the name British Quaternia was put forward.

The idea of this name was to show that the colony was scattered (uniquely) over the four comers of the globe—i.e., north and south of the Equator, and east and west of the International Dateline.

British Quaternia is not likely to find much renewed favour now.

But two names that probably will be widely canvassed are Tuvalu and Tungaru, the collective names for the Ellice and Gilbert Islands respectively.

Tuvalu and Tungaru were the names of the first GEIC Whole sale Society ships to be christened after the war.