Place Names.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20463, 5 February 1932, Page 8

Place Names.

The Progress League's request on "Wednesday night to the Paparua County Couneil was not quite so good as its intention. While everybody will sympathise with the desire to honour Sir Henry Wigram, Sir Henry himself would be the last to wish to be honoured at the expense of an eai*ly settler. And that is what the request involves. Sockburn may or may not be a euphonious name: it is a historic name, and to replace it by Wigram would be to obliterate one more of the marks by which our early struggles can be traced. It is doubtful also if Sir Henry would be more appropriately honoured by a district name than by the name of that part of the district associated with aviation. Although the Canterbury public owe him much in addition to the aerodrome, and much in addition to everything he has done for flying, it is his services to flying by which he is best known all over the Dominion, and the aerodrome is the best focus of this national interest and gratitude. In any case it is nearly always a pity to remove a name in which the Dominion's early history is perpetuated, and it would be especially unfortunate if it were done on behalf of one who is a historian himself.