Street Naming Committee (Adelaide)
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The Street Naming Committee was a committee set up to decide the names of the streets, the squares and the river of the new settlement of Adelaide, South Australia, as it had been laid out by Colonel William Light in 1837. Light's map corresponds to the modern Adelaide central business district (CBD) and the nearby suburb of North Adelaide. The committee met on May 23, 1837.
With a very few exceptions, the original names have been retained, although a large number of streets have since been added, particularly in the CBD. Brown Street and Hanson Street have been subsumed into Morphett Street and Pulteney Street respectively. Roberts Place has been renamed Sir Edwin Smith Avenue.
For the most part the names are of prominent pioneers or people who otherwise made some notable contribution to the founding of South Australia. Some exceptions are due to Governor Hindmarsh and Judge Jeffcott wishing to name streets after their friends. Strangways Terrace was named after Thomas Bewes Strangways, a committee member who was also a prospective son-in-law to the Governor. More controversially, Archer Street was to have been named Willoughby Street, after Sir Henry Willoughby, a British member of parliament who had initially opposed the South Australia Bill, but was later won over and convinced others also to change their votes. Through the Governor's interference, the name was changed to Archer, after a landowner who had given him some sheep. O'Connell Street and Kermode Street were named after Jeffcott's friends Daniel O'Connell, who had defended him over a duel, and Robert Quayle Kermode, the father of his fiancé.
[edit] Committee members
The Street Naming Committee comprised:
| Governor John Hindmarsh | Judge Sir John Jeffcott |
| James Hurtle Fisher, Resident Commissioner | Robert Gouger, Colonial Secretary |
| Colonel William Light, Surveyor-General | John Brown, Immigration Officer |
| Osmond Gilles, Colonial Treasurer | Thomas Gilbert, Colonial Storekeeper |
| John Morphett | John Barton Hack |
| Edward Stephens | Thomas Bewes Strangways |
