WEDNESDAY HISTORY #9 - NAMING THE STREETS OF SYDNEY

Sydney’s street name history can be just as complicated as navigating your way around them.

Over the years, Sydney's streets have been the subject of ongoing modifications, alterations and confusions, with many thoroughfares disappearing, being realigned or renamed.

Sydney’s first streets just followed paths long used by the local Aborigines, others cut through the bush by chain gangs or following goat and bullock tracks. Many roads simply tarred over the dirt tracks.

In 1810, Lachlan Macquarie gave early attention to the state of the roads, ordering alignments, reformings, widenings and the demolition of encroaching buildings. He also tried to stop names being duplicated – often on streets quite close to each other. 

In 1875, about 60 names were changed and more than 100 altered in 1905.

Most of the main thoroughfares kept their original names but George Street was originally known along at least part of its length as High Street.

Macquarie's loyalty to empire, resulted with the ducal titles of the sons of George III – York, Cumberland, Sussex, Clarence, Cambridge and Kent – joining their father and his queen, Charlotte, on street signs. 

To these were added the names of various British officials such as Bathurst, Liverpool, Castlereagh, Pitt and NSW Governors Phillip, King, Hunter, Macquarie and Bligh.

The 1875 redrawing of maps earned a street name – Gould, Merriman, Rowe, Day, Kippax to those involved who were all aldermen at the time.

Sometimes names are grouped geographically, as with the notables of the law whose names adorned the often lawless Woolloomooloo – Dowling, Forbes, Plunket, Stephen, Windeyer, Burton and Judge. 

Later subdivisions allowed similar kinds of namings, as in the case of the creation of the new suburb of Rosebery in the 1920s. The fifth Earl of Rosebery was a former Prime Minister of England, and the streets in the subdivision were named after a British politician and knights of the realm – Salisbury, Ripon and Asquith.

The habit of using children’s first names for streets in early subdivisions has resulted in a range of female names appearing on the map as well.

Industries resulted in names such as Albion and Goodlet, named after a brewery and a brickworks respectively, and Sugar House Lane and Abattoir Road. The carving up of an early nursery bequeathed to odorous Chippendale lead to a bunch of flower-named streets – Pine, Myrtle, Wattle, Rose – while Corfu Street recalls the settlement of a fishing community in Woolloomooloo in the late nineteenth century and long-gone Baltic Lane recalls when Darling Harbour was home to the coastal timber trade.

So there you have it, a lot of different reasons behind the naming of our city streets and clearly a lot of thought has gone in to meticulously organise them to ensure their suitability.

It doesn't happen in all countries.....

Party on dudes

J G S