Time Warp Tuesday - 02 July 2024

Published on Tuesday, 2 July 2024 at 3:20:00 PM

Our Local History Coordinator has been on five weeks Long Service Leave, but today, as she’s back at work, we can say welcome back to our regular #TimeWarpTuesday posts!

ASTRONOMY or HORSES?

THE NOMENCLATURE OF CARLISLE

Anyone who has ever lived in or visited the suburb of Carlisle will have noticed that a lot of the streets in the suburb have names that would seem to relate to astronomy. But are all these streets, like Planet, Pluto and Star Streets, as well as Asteroid Way, are they really all related to astronomy and matter beyond the earth? 

It will surprise you to know that the answer to that question might just be no.

To date there has been no solid evidence uncovered as to the meaning behind the names of these streets in Carlisle that are called Planet Street, Star Street etc… but we have found evidence to support the idea that the names MAY BE connected to horses. More specifically to the history of the Burswood Peninsula and the horse racing club known first as the Burswood Proprietary Turf Club and also as the Burswood Racing Club.

In 1899 the first ever running of the ‘Belmont Park Cup’ took place under the auspices of the Burswood Proprietary Turf Club run by Mr Albert Edmund Cockram (1870-1943), then subsequently by the newly affiliated, under the WA Turf Club rules and regulations, ‘Belmont Park Racing Club’ in 1903.

The winning horses over the years included some very intriguing names, amongst them some that are astronomically inspired. The following is a list of all of these intriguingly named horses and the years that they won the Belmont Park Cup:

      • Pluto (won in 1899) where a crowd of around 500 people attended.
      • Asteroid (won in 1903) There was also another horse named Asteroid making a name for himself in the 1950s racing world.
      • Leonatus (won in 1904)
      • Perplex (won in 1905)
      • Katoomba (won in 1906)
      • Cairo (won in 1907)
      • Little Mary (won in 1908
      • Oi (won in 1909)
      • Phoenix (as in Phoenix Park who won in 1927)
      • Sipal (won in 1935)
      • Nullabung (won in 1947)

As Archer Street, Carlisle is named after the first horse to win the Melbourne Cup in 1861, there is already a precedent set for other streets to have been also named after famous racehorses.

More research needs to be done, but it is certainly looking likely that our once thought astronomically inspired nomenclature is actually inspired by horses. We’ll keep you posted in forthcoming editions of Time Warp Tuesday of our discoveries, but in the meantime if you have any knowledge, photographs, or stories to share about horse racing in Burswood, please get in touch, e: vicparklibrary@vicpark.wa.gov.au, t. 08 9373 5500.

#LoveVicPark  #AstronomyOrHorses

 

 References:

Trove Newspapers: https://trove.nla.gov.au

Gallop, Geoff , Know your suburb: Burswood, Geoff Gallup, Member for Victoria Park, Victoria Park (W.A.), p. 5.

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