Non-U the victor in names of all six South Australia harbo(u)rs, including Outer Harbor, gazetted from 1921
Victor Harbor, officially without a U, but with a residue of nods to the past of the southern Fleuriieu Peninsula city, such as the 1937 plaque (top left) saying that captain Richard Corzier called the town "Victor Harbour" a century before and the "Victor Harbour" railway station name (bottom left) persisting.
Victor Harbor was the most confusing of South Australia’s 20th Century official dropping of U from its harbor names.
All South Australian harbour names – Outer Harbor, Franklin Harbor, Rosetta Harbor, Victor Harbor, Blanche Harbor and Yatala Harbor – were gazetted without the U by the South Australian government in 1921. The lack of U in names such as Outer Harbor was attributed to spelling errors made by a – never named – early surveyor general of South Australia.
The State Library of South Australia pointed out that the lack of the U wasn’t influenced by American spelling but by archaic (pre-French influence) English. But why was an archaic spelling chosen in 1921?
Victor Harbor without a U emerged eventually from a series of name changes from European settlement 1836. It was called Poltong by the first Ramidjeri people and The Point by the whalers, the first European living there, before it became “Victoria Harbour”.
British navy captain Richard Crozier, who anchored in the lee of Granite Island at 5.30 p.m. on April 26, 1837, on his way back to Sydney and India, named the environs Port Victor (after his ship HMS Victor) and the Bluff as Cape Victor. The next year, second South Australian governor George Gawler named it Victor Harbour. This was contradicted by a local plaque from April 26, 1837, that was “TO COMMEMORATE the naming of Victor Harbour by captain R. Crozier who entered with the HMS Victor on April 26, 1837.”
Use of the name Port Victor (without a U) was attributed by another source to the 1860s when the town of Port Victor was laid out on the shores of Victor Harbor in 1863 when it was connected to Goolwa by the horse-drawn tramway.
In 1915, a government proclamation was issued altering the boundaries of the port. The South Australian Harbors Board intended that Port Victor should be changed to Victor Harbor but this was overlooked in drafting the proclamation in 1915. On January 2,1921, the French barque Eugene Schneider narrowly escaped shipwreck at Port Victoria on Yorke Peninsula. Her master had been given orders to proceed to Port Victor but, confused by the similar names, took his vessel to Port Victoria, where he struck the Eclipse Reef. Later that year the South Australian government gazetted all South Australian harbours with the spelling '”harbor” – including officially reverting to the name Victor Harbor without a U.
This didn’t end inconsistences. People could attend the Victor Harbour High School opposite the Victor Harbor Council and travel to Adelaide by train from Victor Harbour Railway Station. In the 1980s, the Victor Harbour Times became the Victor Harbor Times and ran a name-and-shame campaign against all instances of non use of the “official” spelling. This eliminated many inconsistencies– except from the name of the railway station.
