SPRING

There are a couple of theories about the naming of Spring Street. One goes that the street is named after Baron Thomas Spring Rice, a British Whig politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Melbourne from 1835 - 1839.

Before becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, Spring Rice served as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, where he was responsible for Irish affairs. In a six-hour speech in the House of Commons in 1834, he suggested that Ireland be renamed 'West Britain'. He was a strong supporter of Catholic emancipation.

In June 1834, Spring Rice was appointed Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.

He never came to Australia.

The alternative theory is that Spring Street is named after the golden wattle trees that were in full bloom during a Richard Bourke's visit.

An early colonial journalist, Garryowen, wrote in 1888:

The only theory that ever suggested itself to my mind, with any show of probability was that, the street, when pegged out, was so far away in the ‘bush', and it passed over such a smooth, grassy, picturesquely timbered stretch of country, up a beautiful hill from the Yarra - across towards the Carlton Gardens, that either Governor or surveyor was induced by the fragrance of the gum trees and the freshness of the day, to present a votive offering to the goddess of Spring, whose season in another country they seemed to be enjoying, and so Melbourne came to have a Spring Street. This fanciful surmise has been singularly sustained by the testimony of Mr. Hoddle.

– Garryowen, Chronicles of Early Melbourne 1888