What's in a Name?

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19544, 14 February 1929, Page 16

What's in a Name?

The tunnel connecting Christchurch with the Port of Lyttelton, in the early days, was called the Moorhouse tunnel, to perpetuate the name of his Honour the Superintendent of Canterbury, Mr William Sefton Moorhouse, to whose persistent advocacy, in the face of strong opposition, Canterbury owed the construction of the tunnel. To refer to it nowadays as "the Moorhouse tunnel" would be considered pedantic. The mighty moulders of language, the public, have decreed that it shall be "the Lyttelton tunnel," and "the Lyttelton tunnel it is." Those who are inclined to deplore the seeming frustration of the efforts to keep alive the memory of Canterbury's public men of the past may take some consolation from the fact that the instance cited is not an isolated one. The other tunnel in which Canterbury is interested was called, whilst under construction, the Arthur's Pass tunnel, a name which kept alive the fact that the Pass was discovered by Mr Arthur Dudley Dobson. Again popular usage has taken command and "Otira tunnel" has become the generally accepted name. But though the names of Moorhouse and Dobson have not become attached to the tunnels they will, nevertheless, long remain on the lips of Canterbury people—Moorhouse through the avenue in called after him, and Dobson through! Arthur's Pass and the Arthur's Pass National Park, the board to control which is soon to be set up.