Should we change Coburg's name? - The burning question of 1920.

Established in 1839 as the village of Pentridge, the citizens of Coburg had not factored in sharing the locality with a prison of the same name. 

The Stockade, Pentridge,1849. Accession no: H15947. Image courtesy State Library of Victoria. 

By the 1860s, the townsfolk were lobbying furiously for a change from Pentridge to Coburg, citing the stigma of sharing a name with Pentridge Prison.

Pentridge Prison, c1861. Photographer Jean-Baptiste Charlier. 

Image H36668, Image courtesy State Library of Victoria.

And so they chose a name of Germanic origin, in honour of the 1867 visit of Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred. (Queen Victoria's husband was Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha). It was the first royal visit to Australia and was marred by religious tension in Victoria and an assassination attempt in Sydney. (The Protestants and Catholics at loggerheads - the Orange and the Green stirring each other up.) 

Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. Lithographic print published in the Illustrated Sydney News, 22 February 1868. 

Image courtesy State Library of Victoria. Image ISN22/02/68/SU..

Years later, during World War One, the issue of changing the name of the suburb was raised again, this time because it was Germanic in origin. You can read more about that here. 

And then, at the end of the war, the issue was raised again. The suggested name was Moreland, after the Moreland Estate, bought at the first land sales in 1839 by Dr Farquhar McCrae (died 1850), brother-in-law of the diarist and artist Georgiana McCrae. 

Farquhar McCrae lived at his property 'La Rose', built in 1841-42. (It's one of the oldest houses in Victoria and is now known as Wentworth House in Le Cateau Street, Pascoe Vale.) He called his estate Moreland, after his grandfather's plantation in Jamaica. 

Views of Wentworth House, 1972. Courtesy Coburg Historical Society.

So, given the connection to a Jamaican plantation during the late 18th century or perhaps the early 19th century, it seems safe to assume that this was either a coffee or a sugar plantation and that there is possibly a connection here to slavery (which ended in the 1830s). 

From the Coburg Historical Society collection.

The 1920 referendum was not successful, but 74 years later, the municipality's name did change to Moreland. I'm sure that those who chose the name thought it a non-controversial choice, and I suppose it is, but is it any more or less appropriate than those earlier names - Pentridge and Coburg?

I guess we could ask time and time again 'What's in a name?' It's an interesting question and not an easy one to answer.