Renaming streets
Editorial
It seems that there has been a resurgence of enthusiasm for renaming streets. Exactly why it is necessary to rename streets in Georgetown is not altogether clear with new housing areas sprouting up like mushrooms and the plethora of roads which go with them waiting patiently to be christened. The names of highways and byways are an integral part of the local history of an urban settlement, something which is recognized in older societies, where many of the central streets of towns still carry the names they acquired in mediaeval times. The buildings might go, the roads might be widened, but historical links are deliberately maintained in the naming of streets. The nomenclature of Georgetown also carries the stamp of the past. There are plantation names like Werk-en-Rust, for example, a coffee and cotton estate whose grant dates from 1759. A better known one is Plantation Vlissingen (Vlissengen is a modern corruption), after which Vlissengen Road takes its name. Owned once by Joseph Bourda, who died in Paris in 1798 and who has given his name both to the ward and Bourda Street, it was bisected by pleasant walks lined with fruit trees. The name of one of these has survived in Orange Walk. For those of a romantic turn, there are the appellations Le Repentir and La Penitence, corresponding to estates which once belonged to the Frenchman, Pierre Louis de Saffon (d.1784). Tradition has it that he fled here from France after killing his brother in a duel over a woman, and consumed by remorse ever after, his plantations were given names reflecting his guilt. The Cuming family too, is well represented in the capital, in Cummings Street, Cummingsburg, etc. (The double 'm' is a corruption.) While it is Thomas Cuming who left his name, his presence here was a consequence of the fact that his father Lachlan (according to oral tradition) was a Jacobite who had to flee after the 1745 rising in Scotland because he had a price on his head. Some streets, like James and Urquhart took their names from local businessmen or merchants, while others reflected the activity of the area, such as Commerce and America. The former, as its name rightly suggests, was Georgetown's first commercial centre, and the latter ran to the America stelling where the boats from the North American trade docked in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. New Market Street represented the site of the Cummingsburg Market, first set up around 1805. Members of the judiciary are remembered in Henry Street, called after Jabez Henry, first President of the Court of Justice, or Norton and Bent Streets, recalling Judge Norton and the unfortunately named Judge Bent. Renamings in recent times have tended to target governors. There are not a few streets named after them - Hincks, Longden and Bentinck being three examples. The first to go was Murray Street, called after Lieutenant-Governor Murray who was here between 1815 and 1823. It was a snap decision by the late President Burnham, in response to an off-hand remark by the late Mr Joel Benjamin, which caused Murray Street's designation to be changed to Quamina Street in 1984. The reason given was that Murray, the governor during the 1823 rising, sanctioned excessive brutality during and after that revolt. Mr Burnham followed this up with an announcement in 1985, that Carmichael Street was to be renamed, because Carmichael had been the governor who had signed Damon's death warrant. The problem was that not only was Carmichael-Smyth not in Murray's league where brutality was concerned - he commuted all death sentences handed down by a court except Damon's - but Carmichael Street is not called after him in any case. It takes its name from Lieutenant-Governor Hugh Carmichael, nicknamed 'Old Hercules' in his day. He had two pet hates: Dutch lawyers, whom he regarded as crooks to a man, and corruption. Old Hercules was spared Mr Burnham's sentence, however, simply because the latter died before it could be implemented. Guyana's past is a painful past, but that does not justify severing links with it by redesignating everything in sight. One cannot change one's history by changing names; people need to understand their history, not erase it, and like it or not, governors are a part of that history. There are of course, extreme cases - Hitler comes most readily to mind - where one would rename, and it is possibly the case (although not everyone might agree) that Murray could fall into that category. In general, however, the designations of streets should be left as they are. The Mayor of Georgetown and other local authorities who will have the task of giving names to the new streets in the various housing areas, should request a list of people's 'heroes' from the National Trust and the historians at the University of Guyana who should be commemorated. There will be local worthies whom these central authorities know nothing of, however, and each authority should keep its own listing appropriate to its local history. In all cases, however, the people whose names have been chosen should be dead so their contribution can be weighed with the wisdom which distance in time and hindsight provide.
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