South Australia

A definition of history I heard recently is that it is the discipline concerned with the writing of the science of change in past events and human affairs. Born in South Australia, I am surrounded by documentable change and evidence of previous happenings.

This article considers the fishing ground names — wet placenames — located offshore to the north from Penneshaw and American River as local Kangaroo Island ephemera and historical capital of parochial importance.

I chose Dudley Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, in 2009 as a comparative island case study for my toponymic research toward my PhD in linguistics at the University of Adelaide. Dudley Peninsula has a colourful and varied placenaming history. My brief was simple: compare the placename data … ↪