21 Aug 2017

A Christchurch historian has penned a new work inspired by the place names of Banks Peninsula and the Port Hills.

Place Names of Banks Peninsula and the Port Hills by Gordon Ogilvie is published by Canterbury University Press (CUP) this month.

It shows how local place names are a legacy of the whalers, flax traders, boat builders, French Catholic priests, Māori pā, breweries, battle sites and vineyards that are part of the area’s rich Maori and colonial history.

Historian Gordon Ogilvie has written a new book.

Historian Gordon Ogilvie has written a new book.

Ogilvie says writing the book realises a long-held goal. “My life’s ambition has been to write on the hills and peninsula because I love them so much and wanted to share the love and knowledge with others. I’ve done that now and hope readers take what I took from it – the excitement of discovery.”

He challenged himself to write a comprehensive successor to Johannes Andersen’s Place-Names of Banks Peninsula, first published in 1927 and now out of print.

The new book provides names, explains their meaning and gives a short history of communities. English, French and Māori names are included – many of which Andersen sourced directly from kaumātua 100 years ago.

Ogilvie has also been able to include rarely seen sketches and paintings from the Alexander Turnbull Library and Christchurch Art Gallery collections.

“Banks Peninsula, Lyttelton Harbour and the Port Hills of Christchurch offer a wonderfully diverse and kaleidoscopic array of names that speak of the area’s Māori and colonial history and the people who have been there before you,” he says.

Ogilvie has lived on or near the Port Hills almost his entire life and has written 22 books including Banks Peninsula: Cradle of Canterbury (1990). In 2008 he was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to historical research and writing.