JERVIS BAY - - IS IT PRONOUNCED “JURVIS” OR “JARVIS” ?

JERVIS BAY - - IS IT PRONOUNCED “JURVIS” OR “JARVIS” ?
It’s pronounced “JURvis”, and here’s (the short answer) why:
1. It was named after Admiral Sir John Jervis (Lord St. Vincent) (1735-1823), of the Royal Navy. He was a Member of Parliament in the UK, was patron of Lord Horatio Nelson, and had also served with James Cook at the siege of Quebec in 1759. He was commander-in-chief of Britain’s Mediterranean fleet, 1796-1799. Jervis Bay was named by Lieutenant Richard Bowen of the Third Fleet, when he sailed in aboard the Atlantic in 1791.
2. Cape Jervis (in South Australia) is also named after him, and it is always pronounced “JURvis”.
3. Places in Canada and England are also named after him, and they, too, are pronounced “JURvis”.
4. Why, then, do some people say “JARvis”? In 1812, Governor Macquarie commissioned surveyor George Evans to map Jervis Bay’s shoreline. On Evans’ maps, and in his journal (see below), he misspelled it as “Jarvis Bay”, probably because he heard upper-class accents of the Admiralty saying it (they would also have pronounced “service” as “sarviss”, and “person” as “parson”). Evans would also have heard it this way from Macquarie’s Scottish accent. Evans was not a good speller; there are many misspellings on every page of his journal. Also, Jervis Bay stayed misspelt on some naval maps for many years. So, not surprisingly, anyone reading “Jarvis Bay” would think it was pronounced “JARvis Bay” and would perpetuate the mispronunciation. (See also postscript,below).
5. Officers of the Australian Navy also mispronounced it when the Navy became established at Jervis Bay. The mistake was perpetuated by the ABC until 1990, when it changed its official pronunciation back to “JURvis Bay”” after many complaints about newsreaders saying “JARvis”.
6. In 1928, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sir Littleton Groom, received a letter from one Mr Jervis Manton, stating:
“There seems to be a growing inclination to mispronounce the name Jervis Bay. May I please assure you that the correct pronunciation of this word is Jervis and not Jarvis. Sir Thomas Jervis was a relative of my grandmother, and godfather to my father who, throughout his lifetime, was always called Jervis. If you will do what you can to maintain the correct pronunciation of Jervis I shall be glad.”
(The letter was quoted in the Canberra Times of 11th June, 1928)
7. In the 1970’s, the great grandson of Admiral Sir John Jervis was at the White Ensign Club of the Navy, in Nowra, and said that his family have always pronounced their surname “JURvis”.
8. In 1972, NSW Member for the South Coast, Jack Beale, asked for clarification of pronunciation from the Geographical Names Board which replied that its pronunciation should be “by popular usage”. In January, 1973, Shoalhaven Shire Council confirmed a previous resolution that the correct pronunciation was, as it was spelled, “Jervis”.
9. The names of places around Jervis Bay contain many references to the Battle of St Vincent (Vincentia, Collingwood Beach, Huskisson, Bowen St, Duncan St., etc.) due to property developer Warren Halloran who had a great interest in the history of Jervis Bay and its connection to the Battle of St Vincent. He wrote to Viscount St Vincent in England, Ronald George James Jervis, who advised him that the family had always pronounced their name as it was spelled, “Jervis”.
10. Newsreaders and journalists since then have, annoyingly, been “corrected” by naval personnel to say “Jarvis”, mostly because their preferred pronunciation for their naval vessel, HMAS Jervis Bay is “Jarvis”!
11. The BBC’s Dictionary of Pronunciation says that it is pronounced “Jervis” [JURvis].
12. The Macquarie Dictionary’s “Pronunciation of Place Names” says it is “/jer-vuhs”.
13. So, does it matter, or is it just a bit like derby being pronounced either “Durby” or “Darby”, and clerk being “Clurk” or “Clark”, depending on where you are from? It does matter, because it is someone’s name, and we owe him and his descendants the respect of saying his name correctly. Perhaps someone should tell the navy.

Postscript (additional comments)
• In the 18th and 19th centuries, when the colony of NSW was being established, spelling was not as important as it is to us today. For example, in Cook’s Endeavour journals, he spells “clouds” four different ways. Likewise, the captains of the ships calling in to Jervis Bay after 1791 wrote of it as “Jervis Bay”, “Jervis’ Bay”, “Jervises Bay”, and “Jarvis’s Bay”, sometimes using several spellings in the one log.
• Governor Macquarie, in both his journals and official despatches to England, wrote of it variously as “Jarvis Bay”, “Jervis Bay”, “Jervis-Bay” and “Jarvis’s Bay”. It was he who commissioned George Evans to survey the bay, and (whether those instructions were written or spoken), Evans would have seen Macquarie’s misspelling of it or heard it from Macquarie’s strong Scottish accent as “Jarvis”.
• Macquarie was not well-educated; he grew up in Scotland and did not speak or read English until his teen years, and then only from Scottish educators in Edinburgh. Even today, Australian and English ears hear the word “earth” pronounced either as “arrth” or “errth” by Scots, so: “Jarrvis” or “Jerrvis”.
• Also, Macquarie, unlike the four NSW governors before him, was a Scottish military officer, not an English naval officer, and would not have been used to the British Admiralty accents. Evans, who was a good surveyor but a poor speller, would have followed Macquarie’s lead, and so both men misspelt “Jervis” in journals and on maps. Evans’ journal, though only 31 small pages long, contains over 40 misspellings of even common words.
• There may even have been a subconscious element to the issue. Macquarie’s first wife had the maiden name of Jarvis; she died tragically in August 1796 from tuberculosis, while he was stationed in India. To preserve her memory, he renamed the family estate on the Isle of Mull “Jarvisfield” after her. In 1805, he remarried, this time to Elizabeth Campbell who named their daughter (born in September 1808) Jane Jarvis Macquarie. She, too, died tragically at only 3 months old. Finally, Macquarie’s personal servant was one George Jarvis. In short, he was surrounded by JARvises, so a misspelling or mispronunciation of Jervis was very easy.

Tony Butz, 2016
(Previously Vice President, Gerringong & District Historical Society)

Main references
• Macquarie, Lachlan, Journal of a tour to the Cowpastures and Illawarra in January 1822, MS held in Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
• Macquarie, Lachlan, Tour to and from Newcastle 27 July 1818 - 9 August 1818, held in Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
• Evans, George William, Journal of an expedition overland from Jervis Bay to Mr Broughton’s farm near Appin, 25 March – 17 April [1812], acms.sl.nsw.gov.au, MSC709, held in Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney
• State Library of NSW program booklet, The Governor Lachlan Macquarie, 1810 to 1821, pub. July 2010
• Clark, Alan, “You say Jarvis, we say Jervis”, Placenames Australia, March, 2006, p.9
• “The pronunciation of place names”, Macquarie Dictionary Blog: Archives, Feb. 10, 2016, article 356

Image: Rear-Admiral Sir John Jervis, Royal Museums Greenwich.