Windsor

 

Brought to a halt at Windsor, one sees with a jolt the royal progression of settlement. Three of the stops are entitled with royal English names: Sandringham, Hampton, and mind-the-gap Windsor. The gap was global between the family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in their stately homes and the families of settlers who named these far-off places. One has to know one’s place, which is why these subdivisions salute the power base. Two of the stops are titled after stately homes, or facsimiles of stately homes: Elsternwick and resplendent Ripponlea. One observes how this fetish has not changed amongst conservative Australians, who renamed merged Melbourne municipalities after facsimiles of stately homes, in more recent times: Stonnington, say, or Banyule. Three take one to the seaside, but not quite as the settlers would have remembered it: Brighton Beach, Middle Brighton, North Brighton. Two stops describe the simple passage of time, Balaclava being named not for the honey cakes now sold in its main street, but an indecisive battle in the Crimean War (1854); Gardenvale being named, and it is not unique in this regard, after the convenient railway station (1908) situated amidst thriving market gardens on the outskirts. Settlers, whether living in stately homes, seaside shacks, army barracks, or gardener’s cottages, Italianate villas, return verandas, canvas tents, or hollow logs, had however less of an understanding or grasp of Wurundjeri names than English ones – one might say. The particular case in point, though not unique in this regard by any stretch, is Prahran. Our thoughts turn to Prahran, quite naturally, as the doors close again on Windsor with a beep and a thud, Jaded Bayside Commuters (JBC) having jumped on or off as one was talking to oneself these toponymic thoughts in one’s mind. Prahran is a Boonwurrung word for land surrounded by water, in part a reference to the immense lagoon that became Albert (royals again) Park Lake. Pu-ra-ran was the intended pronunciation, but a spelling mistake in a government form led to Prahran; more recently the name has been identified as a transcription of Birrarung. Thoughts drift naturally as trains to South Yarra, slide almost, Yarra being a word meaning sunlight sparkling on water, not the name of the river, which is Birrarung. Thus, one observes that all stops signify English appropriation and possession of land and waters, except Prahran and South Yarra, which name the land and waters. Not that any of these toponyms will remain stationary, even in the mind perforce, one’s discussion of such significant niceties being ever open to the influence of time, change, and language. Most forms are no longer stationery, either