Streets Of Subiaco...History Of Perth Street Names (1935).
This is the first of a series of posts about the streets of Subiaco. In 1935 there was an article published in the Daily News about the street names of Perth and how they told the city's history. There was a focus on prominent men and their role in the development of the State.
There is a brief mention of two of the streets of Subiaco..."By and bye came Governor Broome and Broome road, Subiaco (since absorbed into Hay-street) and the only remaining reminder in the city of the name Broome is a hotel !" The article does not mention Barker Road who was named after Governor Broome's wife Lady Mary Ann Barker.
There is no mention of the contribution of women or Indigenous people's contribution to the street names in the early years of Perth in this article.
The next two posts are about streets connected to the Congregation of the Sisters of St. John of God and their work with the needy, sick and poor in Subiaco.
The photographs of Hay Street, Subiaco are from the State Library of Western Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
The article is from Trove, the database of the National Library of Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
Daily News, 3 August 1935
Street Names Tell Perth's History
(By Q.C.)
The recent re-naming of the Perth-Fremantle road as Stirling Highway has suggested to a cor-respondent a precedent which might be followed with advantage in order to make the names of our streets, parks and other places of public resort, more commemorative of men who pioneered and built up the State.
"When one thinks of it," he writes, "it is remarkable how few names of local celebrities are commemorated in our city names, and how disproportionately numerous are the names of ex-governors who, after all, were mostly merely birds of passage. Investigation of the subject, how-ever, scarcely bears out this contention.
While there are many of the pioneer traders, legislators and track-blazers not honored in city names, Lee Steere, Throssell, Briggs and Marmion occur to mind it will be found that they have not been forgotten in their own centres. Lee Steere, at Bridgetown, Throssell at Northam, Briggs and Marmion at Fremantle, are instances.
History in Brief
Early Perth street names which still obtain, contain an interesting epitome of the times in which the colony was established. St. George's terrace obviously was chosen in honor of the patron saint of England, on whose might on the sea the infant colony was dependent for its existence.
William street was a tribute to the reigning monarch, who issued the Letters Patent of the new colony and Adelaide terrace commemorates his consort. Wellington was adopted as the name for a street after the soldier statesman who, a few years earlier, rid Europe of the Bonaparte menace.
Later contemporaneous British history is reflected in Palmerston, Aberdeen and Beaufort streets and in Victoria Square. That the names of successive governors have been perpetuated is quite true; but why should they not be? They serve to tell the tale of the city and the State.
When Perth expanded sufficiently to warrant streets farther out, the first governor, who laid well and truly the foundations of the city, had departed, and it was a graceful compliment to name a street Stirling a compliment which has been renewed a hundred years later in a new highway.
Open Spaces
Fitzgerald (north) and Ord (west) of the growing settlement mark extensions in those directions under later governors; while Weld Square and Weld Club indicate the growing up of early Perth, in the former instance of a civic sense which aimed at open spaces and in the latter of social advancement.
By and bye came Governor Broome and Broome road, Subiaco (since absorbed into Hay-street) and the only remaining reminder in the city of the name Broome is a hotel ! Governor William Cleaver Francis Robinson was thrice Governor of Western Australia. It is amazing that his only imprint on city street names is a short thoroughfare Robinson avenue. What is even more amazing is the temerity which led to the bestowal of Governor Robinson's second Christian name on a West Perth street.
Perhaps the three-times governor had already left the State then; or it may be that as there were already a William and a Francis street and a Robinson avenue there was no option left his admirers but to use the remaining and distinctively individual name of the popular governor.
Pioneers' Memory To say that the pioneers were forgotten is wrong. Wittenoom-street, East Perth, perpetuates the name of one pioneer, the Rev. J. B. Wittenoom. John Forrest it to be remembered for all time in Forrest place (a belated tribute, it is true), Forrest avenue (East Perth) and Forrest Park (one of the "breathing spaces" of the city). These areas he so consistently advocated and so generously contributed to by the dedication of our glorious King's Park.
Hay-street, too, perpetuates the name of a pioneer, and though its prolongation from East Perth to Subiaco meant obliteration of two other pioneer names- Howick and Broome by which formerly the eastern and western ends respectively were known, it is preferable to continuing three names for one continuous thoroughfare.
Of Forrest's contemporaries, few have been honored by the bestowal of their names on prominent thorough-fares. But the name Shenton whether of the elder Shenton or of his son Sir George cannot definitely be stated here- still lives in a suburban area of Subiaco, and has been adopted officially for the railway station formerly known as West Subiaco.
There is also a street of the name in South Perth; and a little-known thoroughfare in Claremont is called Kingsmill street. After Premiers Frank Wilson, who was three times Premier of the State during his lifetime, had two streets named after him. One, out at Wembley, disappeared in the flood of English street names brought back from a world tour by the town clerk (Mr. Bold); the other was changed after Mr. Wilson's death to Parliament place because of its location immediately opposite the facade of Parliament House (a dubious posthumous attention).
Wilson-street, from its very location, should have been retained. Of later Premiers, Daglish is perpetuated in a new suburb, and street in an adjacent suburb, and in a railway station. Scaddan is commemorated in the name of a settlement in the Esperance area, and also in a suburban street which still awaits macadam.
There is a Rason street somewhere in the Guildford area and Collier has been bestowed as a name on a surveyed thoroughfare on the heights of Wembley which has yet to be made.
Governors Popular
It is not for the present generation to sneer that loyalty or snobbishness is the explanation of the adoption of Governors' names. Have we not our Mount Lawley to remind us that not only the early colonists chose that method of honoring the King's representative? And is not one of our recent agricultural centres (where the emu is a pest) named Campion?
To come right down to present times, it may be asserted with confidence that no protest would be heard if the proposal were offered to adopt the name Mitchell for the much talked of riverside drive from the Causeway to Fremantle.
