It’s been a long time since I visited Sydney, Australia, as evidenced by the lousy quality photograph I took of the city skyline from the Taronga Zoo. That happened during the pre-digital era, or at least my pre-ownership-of-anything-digital era. Digital cameras probably existed although my cheapness would have prevented me from purchasing something until much later.
[UPDATE: I returned to Australia in 2018 and took some much better pictures]
Nonetheless — and I’m still trying to figure out how my mind wandered there — I considered that Sydney seemed to be an odd name for a city. I thought of Sydney (or Sidney) more as a given name. Then a quick sampling of baby-naming websites confirmed that I wasn’t imagining things.
Afterwards I felt like I had to wash my keyboard and run a virus check. Talk about spammy! Those vile nooks and corners gave music lyrics websites a run for their money for lousy information, audacious pop-ups and link-bait switcheroos fueled by questionable SEO tactics. So I returned quickly to the safer side of the Intertubes and never felt happier to consult sources that didn’t feel like I needed to wear rubber gloves as I typed.
What I Found
Sydney, while often a given name for boys (traditionally, and generally spelled with an “i”) or girls (more recently) and particularly in North America, likely came from a surname.
The surname, “probably derived from an Anglo-Saxon locational name, …'[at the] wide island/watermeadow’… There is also a folk etymological derivation from the French place name Saint-Denis.” The source went on to explain, “much of its use in the United States after the American Revolution being due to admiration for Algernon Sidney as a martyr to royal tyranny.”
Never fear, these threads all connected.
Tangentially I just noticed the title of this 12MC article, “Sydney Tentacles” sounded an awful like “Squidward Tentacles.” Can you tell I live in a home with two adolescent boys who like to watch SpongeBob a lot? Alright, I’ll pull it together now and get back on track.
The Connection
Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) provided the nexus. Briefly, he served in the Long Parliament and as a commissioner during the trial of King Charles I. However, he also opposed the King’s execution. After the Restoration of the English monarchy, he continued to favor a republic form of government over royal rule. Officials later implicated him in the Rye House Plot that intended to assassinate Charles II and James, Duke of York (the future James II). A judge found him guilty of treason — which he denied strenuously — and an executioner beheaded him. Many saw him as a martyr including later generations of influential Colonial Americans who had their own issues with the monarchy.
Sydney, Australia did not derive from Algernon Sidney directly. Rather the city honored Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney. Townshend selected Sydney as the name of his peerage when he became Baron Sydney (1783) and he retained it when elevated to Viscount Sydney (1789). But he did this in memory of his distant relative, Algernon Sidney.
Townshend served as Home Secretary for much of the 1780’s and devised the initial plan to send convicts to Botany Bay, leading to European settlement of Australia. Then Arthur Phillip, who captained the First Fleet of convicts and governed the initial colony, named Sydney Cove and established Sydney Town in 1788 for the person who appointed him: Thomas Townshend.
Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
However, Sydney, Australia wasn’t the first settlement to honor Townshend. Actually Sydney, Nova Scotia (map) predated the Australian version by three years, dating to 1785. This location also tied-back to Townshend’s service as Home Secretary. He’d appointed Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres as governor of a colony he wanted to establish on Cape Breton Island. In return, DesBarres named the settlement Sydney. See how it worked?
Canada’s dissolved this Sydney in 1995 although the placename didn’t go away entirely. It became part of the amalgamated Cape Breton Regional Municipality. The Canadian Geographical Names Data Base listed Sydney as an “unincorporated area,” and specifically a “populated place within a Regional Municipality.”
Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia, USA
I found surprisingly few places named Sydney and one of them occurred in the United States, at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia (map). It formed as a private liberal arts college for men in 1775. Hampden-Sydney continues to remain a men’s only institution, one of of only three such colleges in the U.S. that retains that distinction. The Sydney portion of the name did not derive from Townshend. Rather it harkened back to the earlier namesake, Algernon Sidney. This was a visible manifestation of the philosophy and martyrdom of Sidney and the influence it had upon Colonial Americans of privilege.
And a Final Mystery: There is a Sydney in Florida (map). I had no idea if it related to Thomas Townshend, to Algernon Sidney or to anything else for that matter.
Townshend, Vermont, USA
I speculated that if founders named their settlements for Townshend’s peerage then maybe they named other places for his surname. I decided to look for Townshend. Thus I discovered various geographic features bearing that name although most were too minor to trace. They might have honored Thomas Townshend or they might not.
The Town of Townshend in Vermont offered a tantalizing possibility. However, the town history noted,
“The Town of Townshend was chartered in 1753 as one of the New Hampshire Land Grants. It was named for Charles Townshend of England who was most notable for his fondness for taxing the colonies.”
That was a miss. So, how many Eighteenth Century English politicians named Townshend could there be? Actually quite a lot, and they generally intertwined. Such was the case with Thomas and Charles. They were first cousins. Thomas was the son of Thomas; son of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend. Charles was the son of Charles Townshend, 3rd Viscount Townshend; son of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend.
One cousin, Thomas, set in motion the modern history of Australia. The other cousin, Charles, served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and was responsible for the Townshend Acts. These acts included a hated tax on tea that sparked the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolutionary War.
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