Talk:Lyttelton Harbour

message: What is the toponymy of Lyttelton Harbour? The article says the name was made official in 1858, however the source says this was Port Lyttelton and it seems to be saying Lord Lyttelton was officially consenting to the use of his name for the Port, not the Harbour. Has the source been misinterpreted, or is it wrong? The first reported use of Lyttelton Harbour that I can find comes from John Robert Godley in 1853, when he gave a speech to the Canterbury Association upon his return to England. The first use I can find in an official document is when describing the electorate for the Town of Lyttelton in 1858. Port Cooper was officially declared to be Port Victoria when it was declared a Port of Entry in 1849, while the Town of Lyttelton was officially proclaimed as a Town (effective 1 June 1850) on 29 May 1850. Additionally, Port Victoria is still being used as late as 1878 in official documents announcing election results, so I don't think that name has been extinguished officially. Also, Whakaraupō first appears in English as Wakaraupo Bay in a letter dated 4 May 1849 from Captain J. L. Stokes, H.M.S.V. Acheron, to Governor Grey; so I think the Maori language toponymy is entirely credible. As is the official dual name of Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō because this is readly found in the NZGB Place name Gazetteer. But the common name of this place is currently Lyttelton Harbour and the usage starts in newspapers from 1853, not from 1858. Why? There is no toponymy story for this recorded, but unofficial, place name that is in most common usage. The article doesn't explain the place name and I don't think anybody has properly researched it, either. So this is going to be rather tricky to explain if one is to avoid it being labeled "original research" - which it probably is. Even so, the current article, and especially the lead section, is inaccurate and uninformative in this respect and does need to have the place name and its usage properly explained. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 07:12, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: After some more research, the New Zealand Pilot (1875) pp 212-215  has an entry for Port Lyttelton or Victoria. The notes there indicate that the original name was Port Cooper but the names Lyttelton or Victoria are from an 1849 survey chart by Captain Stokes R.N., where both names are used. There are reports noted from the Collector of Customs at port Victoria in 1855 and the Lyttelton Harbour Commission in 1863. This provides a better explanation for the name, because the harbour appears to have acquired it name from the Commission managing the harbour, or was it the other way around? Unfortunately, there is no record of a linguist or a toponymist observing these changes in name usage, so one needs to rely on printed information that we still have access to today. Examples of this are newspaper columns like the Shipping News, that report the coming and going of vessels under the various names; Cooper, Victoria and Lyttelton. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 20:23, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toponymy 

message: What should really be in the History section? Most of what is there at the moment is more relevant to individual places in the harbour that have their own articles. There is nothing about the harbour's pre-history, European discovery, exploration, early settlement, survey, Canterbury Association settlement plans, and that just takes us up to 1850. There is one mention about Port development in the inner Harbour, but what happened with other harbour developments such as cross-harbour ferries, marina, land reclamation and tank farm, Roll-On-Roll-Off Ferries, the container port, Cruise ships, the 2011 earthquakes, earthquake recovery. Is any of this relevant or should it be covered in other articles? If it is the latter, there should be at least a sentence or so here that directs readers to where the item is dealt with more thoroughly. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 21:07, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Port Pegasus / Pikihatiti which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 02:03, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress 

message: The article says the harbour has a surface area of 4000 km². According to page 6 of this report   by Environment Canterbury the whole of Banks peninsula has a total area of around 1000 km² so Whakaraupō cannot be anywhere near 4000 km².
Wirikinihana (talk) 07:35, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surface area