The name Whitehaven Bay was given in 1879 by Staff Commander E.P. Bedwell, RN, in SS Llewellyn, being one of the many names from the then English county of Cumberland he brought to the area following on from Cook's 1770 naming of the group ‘The Cumberland Isles'. Whitehaven is a town on the shore of Solway Firth. The name is particularly apt because the bay and its environs carry a large deposit of pure white silica sand giving the area a dazzling white clean appearance and this may have influenced Bedwell in his naming.
|