One of the joys of the centenary celebrations is going to be, creative director Robyn Archer announced on Canberra Day, Canberrans being encouraged to research the person their street or suburb is named after.
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''We invite Canberrans to raise a toast to their street's namesake during 2013, possibly on that namesake's birthday,'' centenary literature chirrups.
Alas, for some Canberrans, this exercise is going to bring some of the sorts of shocks that can lie in wait for those who go naively down the gaslit alleyways of genealogical research and find they are descended from graverobbers, slavers, whoremongers and, worst of all, members of parliament.
In this columnist's corner of Garran it will be a joy to raise a toast to the delightful poet our street is named after. Spare a thought, though, for those Canberrans who are going to find they live somewhere named after a monster.
A few of the most sadistic swine of the convict era have Canberra streets named after them. So brace yourselves, burghers of Foveaux Street, Ainslie, for what you will uncover about your Major Joseph Foveaux (1765-1846), sadistic, pitiless and perverted commandant of Norfolk Island.
Steel yourselves ye of Sorell Street, in Forrest, for the ugly truth about your William Sorell (1775-1848) a governor of Van Diemen's Land and creator of a prison hell at Macquarie Harbour that Robert Hughes says in The Fatal Shore was ''for 10 years the worst spot in the English-speaking world''.
Of course, how you feel about your street's namesake may depend on where you do your research.
Sorell is a brute in The Fatal Shore , but the ACTPLA online ''place name search'' pats him on the back. ''Governor of Tasmania, 1817-24; during his rule the colony made good progress, with exports of cattle, wheat and wool, and the establishment of whaling stations.''
