West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Thursday 13 May 1943, page 2


EYRE HIGHWAY. Origin of Title. Referring to a paragraph relating to Eyre highway, which appeared in "The West Australian" yesterday, Dr J. S. Battye, chairman of the Nomenclature Advisory Committee in this State, said the impression that the suggestion for that title to be given to the road from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie, was an ori-ginal recommendation from the S. Australian Nomenclature Committee, was erroneous. The West Australian Committee, in which his associates were the Surveyor-General (Mr W. V. Fyfe), the Commissioner of Main Roads (Mr J. M. Young), Mr J. A. Klein, and Mr F. L Bray, had been engaged in naming the main arte-rial highways of the State, and that work had advanced almost to the stage of being ready for gazettal. In the main, they had chosen direc-tional names like "Great Eastern" and "Great Northern" highways. In the case of the new east-west road. they had taken that point into con-sideration some months ago imme-diately after it was completed. They could only recommend a name for that portion of it which was within the borders of Western Australia. and they suggested to the S Aus-tralian committee, that they should jointly agree upon a name which could be used for the road right through. The road runs from Norseman to Port Augusta, and not, as was suggested in the paragraph, from Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta. They proposed to S Australia 2 al-ternatives. The first was "Great Western Highway." If the S Aus-tralian Committee did not like direc-tional names, then the road could be called "Eyre Highway," after Eyre, the explorer. South Australia had preferred the name "Eyre Highway," and the Victorian Hlstorical Society agreed that that would be a suitable designation. The commit-tee in this State had had several communications on the matter with S Australia, and ultimately deter-mined that, as far as they were con-cerned, they would give the name "Eyre Highway" to the West Aus-tralian portion. S Australia then agreed to give their part of the road the same name, and the Prime Min-ister (Mr Curtin), who had for-merly suggested "Forrest Highway," fell in with the idea. The approval of the Minister for lands (Mr Wise) was given to the recommendation, and arrangements were now being made to have the road gazetted in that name. "We wish to make it clear," added Dr Battye, "that the recommenda-tion of 'Eyre Highway' as the name of the road came first from Western Australia. In the S Australian com-munication to the Prime Minister, it was suggested also that the EastWest railway, should be called 'For-rest Railway.' That suggestion did not meet with the approval of the Nomenclature Committee here, which preferred to retain the title 'Trans-Australian Railway,' and we understand that the Prime Minister is of the same opinion. The com-mittee in this State had agreed some time ago to name the road from Albany eastward, which fol-lowed more or less Eyre's track, the Eyre Road.' "