Castlereagh Street, Sydney, and Lord Castlereagh – The Minister Who Sent Us Macquarie, His Duel with Canning and His Death in 1822 – and the Street Named After Him

Ask most Sydneysiders who Castlereagh Street is named after and you'll get a shrug. Some say it sounds like a castle, and a few say "Castle-ray". It's one of the main streets of the CBD, running from the Domain end of the city down to Haymarket. It has David Jones and the luxury shops, the old Fire Station and the Masonic Centre. Yet the man it honours is almost forgotten here. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, never came to Australia. Still, for a few years he ran the colony from London, and he's the man who sent us Lachlan Macquarie. His own story ended badly, in a duel and then a suicide that shocked Britain. Here's the story of the man and the street.

Castlereagh Street today, looking along the CBD, 2023. Image: -wuppertaler, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Who Was Lord Castlereagh?

Robert Stewart was born in 1769 into an Ulster family of landowners and politicians. "Viscount Castlereagh" was a courtesy title he used for most of his career, taken from his father's peerage. Late in life, in 1821, he became the 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, but history still remembers him as Castlereagh. He made his name in Ireland as Chief Secretary, pushing through the Act of Union of 1800, which joined Ireland to Great Britain. The Irish never forgave him for it.

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, about 1817. Image: Thomas Lawrence, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The 1878 Compendium of Irish Biography, on Library Ireland, says his English career "practically commenced" in 1805, when he was made Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. He held that job twice, from 1805 to early 1806 and again from 1807 to 1809. In those days New South Wales was run from that office. Every despatch from Sydney, every complaint about rum and every request for convicts, cattle or a new governor ended up on his desk.

The Rum Rebellion Lands on His Desk

On 26 January 1808 the New South Wales Corps marched on Government House and arrested Governor William Bligh. It's the Rum Rebellion, and the news took months to reach London. The introduction to Macquarie's papers in the Historical Records of Australia says word of "the usurpation of the government in New South Wales and the arrest of Governor Bligh" arrived in September 1808. With the Peninsular War under way, "the report at first caused scanty comment". Within weeks, though, Castlereagh decided to replace Bligh and to send a regiment to relieve the Corps.

His first choice for governor wasn't Macquarie at all. In December 1808 he offered the job to Brigadier-General Miles Nightingall, and Lieutenant-Colonel Lachlan Macquarie's 73rd Regiment was chosen to go with him. Then Nightingall fell ill. By mid-April 1809 it was clear he couldn't go, and by the end of the month Castlereagh had given the job to Macquarie. Macquarie's commission and instructions were dated 8 and 9 May 1809, the day after his regiment had already embarked at Yarmouth. As the Historical Records put it, Macquarie's appointment was "entirely due to the accidents of life". So the governor who gave Sydney its streets, its Hyde Park and its Macquarie towns got the job because another man got sick. Castlereagh signed off on it.

Macquarie Names the Street, 1810

Macquarie arrived at the start of 1810 and wasted no time. On 6 October 1810 the Sydney Gazette printed his Government and General Order giving "regular and permanent NAMES to all the STREETS and WAYS leading through the Town". Posts and finger-boards with the names painted on them were to go up at the corners, and the streets were "henceforth to be known and called only by the new Names". George Street got its name in that order, and so did Charlotte Square, Macquarie Place and Hyde Park. The plan of new street names published with it gave Sydney most of the names we still use.

The City of Sydney's history of Sydney's streets says the central names "reflected Macquarie's loyalty to empire". George III's sons appear as York, Cumberland, Sussex, Clarence, Cambridge and Kent, alongside "the names of various British officials such as Bathurst, Liverpool, Castlereagh, Pitt". The City of Sydney Archives' own catalogue notes say "Castlereagh St was named by Governor Macquarie in 1810 for Viscount Castlereagh". Wikipedia adds that the street had earlier been called Chapel Row and Camden Street. It also says the name once took in what is now Loftus Street, called Castlereagh Street North until 1881, and what is now Chalmers Street, until 1905. I haven't found those older names in a primary source, so take them as Wikipedia's account. By the time the order was printed, Castlereagh was no longer in the job. He had resigned the year before, after a scandal.

The Duel on Putney Heath

In April 1809, while Castlereagh was sending Macquarie off to Sydney, the Foreign Secretary, George Canning, was quietly working to have him sacked. The UK National Archives' catalogue of the Portland papers sets it out. Canning told the Prime Minister, the Duke of Portland, that the war was being badly run and that Lord Wellesley should take over the War Department, or he would resign. The cabinet kept it from Castlereagh for months. Then the Walcheren expedition, Castlereagh's big landing in the Netherlands, failed disastrously. In September he found out what had been going on behind his back. He resigned and challenged Canning to a duel.

History Today tells the story well. Canning had never fired a pistol in his life. He wrote his will and a farewell letter to his wife. His second was so nervous loading the pistol that Castlereagh's second, Lord Yarmouth, did it for him. They met at 6 am on Putney Heath. The first shots missed. Canning's second shot hit a button on Castlereagh's coat, and Castlereagh's second shot hit Canning in the thigh. Castlereagh then helped him limp away. The sources differ on the date by a day. History Today says 21 September 1809, and the National Archives catalogue says 22 September. Both men left the government, and Portland's ministry fell apart.

A nineteenth-century print of the Castlereagh–Canning duel on Putney Heath, 1809. Image: unknown artist, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Most Hated Man in England

Castlereagh came back as Foreign Secretary in 1812 and held the job until 1822. He helped hold together the alliance that beat Napoleon and was one of the main players at the Congress of Vienna. Many historians now rate him one of Britain's great foreign secretaries. At home, though, he was the face of a government that put down reform. After the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, the poet Shelley wrote in The Mask of Anarchy: "I met Murder on the way – He had a mask like Castlereagh". He was the government's leader in the Commons, so he defended its harshest measures there, and the radicals loathed him.

The strain told. The Library Ireland biography says that after the hard 1822 session "he was observed to be suffering from great nervous excitement". He went to his country house at North Cray in Kent. On the morning of 12 August 1822 he cut his throat with a penknife and died almost at once. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Some in the crowd cheered as his coffin went in, and Byron wrote a savage mock epitaph. At the time, Macquarie had been back in Britain less than a year.

Castlereagh's statue in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried in 1822. Image: 14GTR, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Castlereagh All Over New South Wales

Macquarie clearly thought well of the man who'd given him the job, because the name turns up all over the colony. On 6 December 1810, after a dinner at the Hawkesbury, Macquarie named his five new "Macquarie towns". His journal, held by the State Library of NSW, records: "the Township for the Evan or Nepean District I have named Castlereagh in honor of Lord Viscount Castlereagh". The others were Windsor, Richmond, Pitt Town and Wilberforce, and he drank "a Bumper to the success of each". Castlereagh never grew into a real town, but the name survives in the suburb of Castlereagh near Penrith and in the Castlereagh Nature Reserve.

The big one is the Castlereagh River in the north-west. In July 1818 John Oxley's second expedition came across it. The memorial near Coonamble says it was "discovered" on 11 July 1818 by Surveyor George Evans, Oxley's second-in-command. Oxley's journal for 18 July records that Evans returned and that the river "was now honoured with the name of Lord Castlereagh". The river rises in the Warrumbungles and runs about 540 kilometres through Coonabarabran, Mendooran, Gilgandra, Gulargambone and Coonamble to the Macquarie River. Of course it had names long before 1818. The surveyor Thomas Mitchell recorded in 1846 that the local people called it the Barr, and it's also known as Wallambangle. The Castlereagh Highway, from Lithgow through Mudgee and Gilgandra to the Queensland border, carries the name too.

The Castlereagh River at Coonabarabran, near its source in the Warrumbungles. Image: Sardaka, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

The Castlereagh River at Coonamble, near where Oxley's party waited for the floodwaters to fall in 1818. Image: Mattinbgn, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

The Street Grows Up

For its first few decades Castlereagh Street was a back street, with cottages, stables, yards and small workshops behind the grander George and Pitt Streets. The Victorian boom changed it. By the 1880s and 90s it had theatres, hotels, chapels and offices, and it became one of the city's big entertainment streets.

Castlereagh Street from near King Street, 1892–93, photographed by Fred Hardie. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

The grandest building on the street was the Hotel Australia, which ran right through to Martin Place. For most of the 20th century it was the place to stay in Sydney. I've written it up in my post on the Australia Hotel.

The Hotel Australia in Castlereagh Street, about 1892, by Fred Hardie. Image: National Library of Australia, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Martin Place and Castlereagh Street around 1935, with the Hotel Australia on the left, by Hall & Co. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Further up was the Tivoli, home of vaudeville and variety for generations of Sydney theatregoers. The Central Methodist Mission had its Lyceum hall at No. 139.

The Tivoli Theatre in Castlereagh Street, early 1900s, by Hall & Co. Image: Hall & Co., via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The Central Methodist Mission at 139 Castlereagh Street, 1938, photographed by Sam Hood. Image: Sam Hood, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Not all of the street was grand. When bubonic plague broke out in 1900, the government sent in cleansing gangs, and the photographs they took show the yards and sheds behind the shopfronts. A public school stood on Castlereagh Street too, photographed in 1872.

The public school in Castlereagh Street, 1872. Image: Charles Percy Pickering, NSW Government Printer, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

A shed behind No. 310 Castlereagh Street, photographed during the plague cleansing operations of 1900. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Landmarks Along the Way

Walk the street today and there's history all the way along. Here are the ones I've written about before.

• At the King Street corner stands Culwulla Chambers at No. 67. It was one of Sydney's early tall office buildings, and its height helped bring in the city's height limit.
• The Great Synagogue faces Elizabeth Street but backs onto Castlereagh Street. See my post on the Great Synagogue.
• Down at No. 211–217 is the City of Sydney Fire Station, headquarters of the fire brigade since 1888. My earlier post on it is here.
• On the corner of Goulburn Street is the Sydney Masonic Centre, a Freemasons' site since 1884. For more on the Masons, see my post on Freemasons in Australia.
• Castlereagh Street also had its share of odd tenants, like Scientology House.

The Castlereagh Street side of the Great Synagogue, 2023. Image: Shkuru Afshar, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The Fire Station in Castlereagh Street around 1900, from the Tyrrell collection. Image: Powerhouse Museum, Tyrrell Collection, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Firemen at a blaze in Castlereagh Street, 1934, photographed by Sam Hood. Image: Sam Hood, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The Castlereagh Street face of the Sydney Masonic Centre, 2022. Image: Shkuru Afshar, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

War, Books and Shopping

The street saw plenty of marches too. In September 1940 the 2/19th Battalion of the 8th Division marched down Castlereagh Street past the Hunter Street corner, on the way to a war that would end for many of them in Malaya and the prison camps. After the war, readers crowded into Angus & Robertson's bookshop there.

The 2/19th Battalion marching down Castlereagh Street near Hunter Street, September 1940. Image: Australian War Memorial, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Inside Angus & Robertson's bookshop in Castlereagh Street, 1946. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

From the 1930s the old buildings started coming down. Harold Cazneaux photographed old buildings "giving way in Castlereagh St for the new". The Hotel Australia, the Tivoli and most of the Victorian street are gone now. In their place are towers, the MLC Centre and, at the northern end, a row of luxury boutiques that has made Castlereagh Street the city's high-fashion strip. David Jones's Market Street store fronts onto it as well.

"Sydney growing up": old buildings giving way in Castlereagh Street, photographed by Harold Cazneaux. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

David Jones on Castlereagh Street, 2016. Image: Kgbo, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

So Next Time You're Walking Down Castlereagh Street…

Spare a thought for the man on the sign. He was an Irish aristocrat who never saw Sydney. He sent us Macquarie because the first choice got sick, fought a duel with a cabinet colleague the same year, helped settle Europe after Napoleon, and took his own life at 53. His name ended up on a street, a township and a river 17,000 kilometres from where he lived and died. Not a bad legacy for someone most of us can't pronounce. For the record, it's "CASS-ul-ray".

References

• Historical Records of Australia, Series I, introduction to the Macquarie volumes (via Project Gutenberg Australia and the Internet Archive).
• Lachlan Macquarie, Government and General Order, Sydney Gazette, 6 October 1810 (Macquarie University LEMA archive).
• Lachlan Macquarie, journal of his first tour of inspection, 1810, State Library of NSW.
• City of Sydney, "History of Sydney streets"; City of Sydney Archives item A-00036232 (1902).
• The National Archives (UK), Portland papers catalogue, "Quarrel between George Canning and Robert, Viscount Castlereagh".
• History Today, "The Castlereagh–Canning Duel".
• A Compendium of Irish Biography (1878), "Robert Stewart, Lord Castlereagh", via Library Ireland.
• John Oxley, Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales (1820), extract in Ernest Scott (ed.), Australian Discovery.
• Monument Australia, "European Discovery of Castlereagh River", Coonamble.