Talk:Hill River (South Australia)

Clean up of article

I noticed the confusing state of this article when I recently replaced the "coord missing" template with coordinates. The content re localities needs to be moved either other articles or to new articles. RegardsCowdy001 (talk) 06:43, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

River discovery and naming

Can anyone clear up the confusion on who discovered Hill River and which Hill (person) it was named for? 3 possibilities appear in sources now, although I didn't check the Edward John Eyre autobiography to sight that one.

1. Discovered: 1838 • By: William Hill • Named for: Rowland Hill (Source: SA Government PLB place names report; Quote: Derivation of Name: Rowland Hill; Other Details: Recorded as being discovered by William Hill in 1838. Rowland Hill was at that time Secretary to the SA Association. He later became famous for pastoral activities. Shown on Captain Frome's 1842 Plan as River Hill.)
2. Discovered: 1839 • By: Edward John Eyre • Named for: John Hill (explorer) (Source: Eyre autobiography)
3. Discovered: 1839 • By: William Hill • Named for: William Hill (Source: SA Register, 13 June 1908 page 9 'Nomenclature...'; Quote: Discoverer of Rivers. — The Hutt and Hill Rivers were discovered and named by William Hill in 1839 — the one after Sir William Hutt, M.P. one of Lord Glenelg's nominees among the South Australian Colonization Commissioners, and the other after himself. J. W. Bull, in his reminiscences mentions having been at Hill's camp. In aboriginal talk the Hutt River is Parriworta. Besides the two streams there are the Hutt and Hill River District Council, Hutt street, Adelaide, and Hill River Estate, one of the crack stations in the lower north.)

Possible (probable) explanation is John Hill (explorer) and William Hill (no wiki article I could find) are the same guy. See second para of this article. Donama (talk) 01:17, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Donama, I also had a look in 2015 and could not figure out who the river was named after. Your edit of the article adequately explains the state of the knowledge about this mater. Also. thanks for fixing up this really messy article. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I feel like it probably handles this the best way as possible as is: even if it can be definitively determined who it was named for, there's still a fundamental clash of sources as to who it was named by. It's hard to argue with Eyre's autobiography, but the 1908 Register article backing up the current place name records weigh enough against that to warrant mentioning both, since they can't both be right. Right now the article does this pretty succinctly. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:10, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay, cool. But second question is can anyone find out whether William Hill and John Hill (explorer) are the same person? I'm guessing the main authors of John Hill (explorer) definitely thinks they are, based on the sources cited. I can't think of any quick way to verify one way or the other. Donama (talk) 04:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Anyone have time to check this new book out. Surely it will make it clear! Slee, Max (2015). John Hill c. 1810-1860: South Australia's discoverer of rivers. ISBN 9780994196002. Thanks, Donama (talk) 04:23, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi - 'William' Hill never existed, despite over 100 years of misinformation concerning him. As author of the 2015 book on John Hill, I cannot describe here in just a few words what is detailed in 144 pages of that book, which took years of research and cites 274 solid sources. All I can do is plead that people do not accept shallow/old/secondary sources without being totally familiar with the material. I invite you to read the book and then make your conclusions. I hope that you enjoy the read. John, not William, is most certainly 'the man'. Kaarenmax19 (talk) 11:18, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Karrenmax19, my feeling is that this information needs to be adequately and succinctly summarised here on Wikipedia regardless. Is it possible for you to try? Wikipedia rests on the back of high quality original researchers like yourself who can be cited as secondary and tertiary sources. Thank you! I do intend to read your book at some point for myself but my own conclusions aren't useful here on Wikipedia. What is useful is a summary of what your research discovered and a solid reference back to your book for others reading Wikipedia to verify. Donama (talk) 02:05, 29 March 2016 (UTC)