Confusable names of maritime locations

 

 

There are quite a few place names found in more than one of the various English-speaking nations and elsewhere and sometimes more than once within the same nation. These can confuse the unwary and lead to incorrect transcription of records.

 

The geography of place names can become quite a game. Even ordinarily serious people have been known to take elaborate pains to warn a colleague against confusing some minor city with the other one of the same name with all those ancient monuments in Europe. The greetings’ card industry exploits the joke. I hereby take the opportunity to place on record that I have both sailed and rowed an eight-foot dinghy around Cape Horn in winter - Cape Horn being a small wooded promontory on Auckland’s Manukau Harbour (long.174° 44’ E., lat.36° 56’ S).

 

Diversions aside, the potential for error is real and serious when dealing with less obvious examples. I have found records wrongly attributed because of an understandable assumption or easily made error. For example, those unfamiliar with Australian geography may easily assume that Brisbane Water adjoins the Queensland city of Brisbane. However, Brisbane Water is actually in New South Wales, only a little north of Sydney. It was a major shipbuilding centre by Australasian standards in its own right for many years. Similarly, I have also encountered confusion between St John (New Brunswick) and St John’s (Newfoundland). I have encountered records of vessels originating in Sydney, Nova Scotia, that were subsequently registered in Sydney, New South Wales, at serious risk of being assumed to have been constructed locally.

 

The distinction between the different shipbuilding and coal-exporting Newcastles is critical; likewise the two major shipbuilding Belfasts. Within the United States, the distinction between Camden, Maine and Camden, New Jersey is important, as are the distinctions between the two Milfords, three Newcastles, three Portlands and two Portsmouths, all but the first of which have namesakes in other countries.

 

For Gareth Butler’s experience of the problem in relation to early volumes of Lloyd’s Register, refer to “Place of build” at  http://www.lr.org/services_overview/shipping_information/is034research_early_registers.htm

 

 

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The following table makes available my current working list of place name cautions for whatever aid it may be to others. The places named are only those I judge capable of being confused with some other maritime place while studying maritime history - there are many other name duplications that are not of international maritime significance. For example, New Zealand’s fourth largest urban area is another Hamilton. It is officially a customs port and it once had river-barge traffic but you won’t find it in international historical maritime records, so it isn’t listed below.

 

Most references are to cases of identical spelling occurring in more than one jurisdiction or multiple occurrences in the same. A few draw attention to slight variations of spelling that are all that distinguish two names. Generally rows should be read across but there are a few cases in adjoining rows (St John and St John’s, Brisbane and Brisbane Water and Kingston/Kingstown). Some usages are of historical rather than current relevance. No claim is made of completeness.

 

 

 

                                    USA                Canada      UK + Ireland   Australia    New Zealand      Other

 

Baltimore

Maryland

-

Ireland

-

-

-

Bangor

Maine

-

County Down

-

-

-

Barnstaple

Massachusetts

-

Devonshire

-

-

-

Bathurst

-

New Brunswick

-

-

-

River Gambia

Bay of Islands

-

Nova Scotia

-

-

North Auckland

-

Belfast

Maine

-

Northern Ireland

Victoria

-

-

Bid(d)eford

Maine

-

Devonshire

-

-

-

Boston

Massachusetts

-

Lincolnshire

-

-

-

Brid(ge)port

Connecticut

-

England

-

-

-

Brisbane

-

-

-

Queensland

-

-

Brisbane Water

-

-

-

New South Wales

-

-

Bristol

-

New Brunswick

Gloucestershire

-

-

-

Brooklyn

New York

Nova Scotia

-

-

-

-

Calais

Maine

-

-

-

-

France

Camden

Maine; N.J.

-

-

-

-

-

Dartmouth

-

Nova Scotia

Devonshire

-

-

-

Devonport

-

-

Devonshire

Tasmania

Auckland

-

Essex

Massachusetts

-

England

-

-

-

Falmouth

Maine

-

Cornwall

-

-

Jamaica; Antigua W.I.

Gloucester

Massachusetts

-

port and county

-

-

-

Greenwich

-

New Brunswick

London

-

-

-

Hamilton

-

Ontario

-

-

-

Bermuda

Ipswich

Maine

-

Suffolk

-

-

-

Kingston

New York

Ont.; N.B.

Sussex

-

-

Jamaica

Kingstown

-

-

-

-

-

St Vincent W.I.

Liverpool

-

Nova Scotia

Lancashire

-

-

-

Milford

Delaware; Mass.

-

Wales

-

-

-

Newcastle

Del.; Me; N.H.

Ontario

Northumberland

New South Wales

-

-

Northumberland County

Virginia

-

England

-

-

-

Perth

-

-

Scotland

Western Australia

-

-

Plymouth

Massachusetts

-

Devonshire

-

(New Plymouth)

-

Portland

Conn.; Me; Oregon

New Brunswick

-

Victoria

-

-

Portsmouth

N.H.; Va.

-

Hampshire

-

-

-

Queen Charlotte Sound

-

British Columbia

-

-

South Island

-

Rochester

New York

-

Kent

-

-

-

Rothesay

-

New Brunswick

Glasgow

-

-

-

Severn River

Virginia

-

England

-

-

-

Soloman's Island

Maryland

-

-

-

-

 cf. Soloman Islands

Somerset County

Maryland

-

England

-

-

-

St John

-

New Brunswick

-

-

-

Antigua W.I.

St John's

-

Newfoundland

-

-

-

-

St Thomas/...de Pierreville

-

Quebec

-

-

-

Virgin Is. (St. Thomas)

Stockton-on-Tees/Stockton

-

-

S.-on-Tees, Co. Durham

Stockton, NSW

-

-

Sydney

-

Nova Scotia

-

New South Wales

-

-

Table Cape

-

-

-

Tasmania

Mahia Peninsula

-

Victoria

-

British Columbia

-

Colony/State

Port V. =Lyttelton

-

White Haven, Whitehaven

Maryland

-

England

-

-

-

Worcester County

Maryland

-

England

-

-

-

Yarmouth/Great Yarmouth

Maine

Nova Scotia

Norfolk & I.O.W.

-

-

-

 

 

Conn.     Connecticut

Del.       Delaware

I.O.W.     Isle of Wight

Mass.       Massachusetts

Me.        Maine

N.B.         New Brunswick

N.H.         New Hampshire

N.J.          New Jersey

NSW        New South Wales

Ont.         Ontario

Va.        Virginia

W.I.         West Indies

 

The Port Victoria name for Lyttelton probably applies only in 1850’s records. It was previously known as Port Cooper. The borough of Lyttelton was constituted in 1868.

 

Port Fairy, Victoria, was renamed Belfast and appears under that name in the statistical tables in the Register of Australian and New Zealand Shipping from 1877.  It reverted to the original name of Port Fairy by a special Act of Parliament in 1887 but references to both names overlap in time.

 

 

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