Talk:King George V Reservoir
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[edit] Name
All the OS maps I've come across (pre-war onwards) show this as King George's Reservoir, not King George V. Lots of refs on the web (including this one) call it the latter. Does anyone have a reliable source for the correct name? Pterre (talk) 01:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- Presumably until 1936, (shortly before) the abdication of Edward VIII it can never have occured to anyone that there would be more than one King George during the lifetime of anyone then around. I hope someone will react to your prod with something more factual / evidence based than this, but meantime I permit myself this little bit of contextualising. Emphasizing WHICH King George the thing was named after only becomes necessary retrospectively, after the king's brother unexpectedly (1) comes to the throne and (2) calls himself King George VI (rather than King Albert: Albert was, as far as I recall, the poor fellow's preferred name pre-kingship).
- Incidentally, my standard one inch Ordinance survey map (sheet 161) from somewhere round 1958 doesn't show any name for any of these reservoirs. On the face of the water surface itself is written merely "River Lea Navigation". Still, this is the same sheet which manages to avoid all mention of North Weald airfield, so presumably someone was trying (not) to tell the Russians something important. Quite why anyone would have expected Russian invasion plans to be based on Ordinance Survey maps I'm not sure, but I guess international relations tend to be based on mutual ignorance and misconception.
- Thames Water the owners of the reservoir do refer to it as the King George V reservoir in their correspondence to me. But I do agree, I have seen maps where the water is shown as King George's reservoir. A bit confusing like a lot of things in the Lee Valley or should that be Lea Valley. Cheers Northmetpit (talk) 11:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Thames Water presumably now call it King George V to distinguish it from King George VI Reservoir (or should that be King Edward VI? ;-)) so perhaps that is now the official name. The omission of the name on maps you mention is curious. In my collection I've looked through OS Popular Ed Sheet 107 (1913 reprinted 1932 and 2nd war revision 1940), New Popular 161 (1932 reprinted 1946), 7th Series 161 B-* (1964) and C ( 1970), Landranger 177 A (1974) to C2 (94), all of which name it as King George's. The only one I've found which does not name it is 2-1/2 Inch Provisional TQ39 (1960, rev 71) which leaves leaves off all the reservoir names; it's named on the 2nd ed A (1978) onwards and on Explorer 173 & 174. Note to self, must get a life, I've got a wall to tile! Pterre (talk) 13:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
