Anson Place

Anson Place runs off Wrantage Street in Westown. It was created in 1970 with its name copied from a street in Plymouth, England.

The original Anson Place is located in Devonport, an area of Plymouth where many street names commemorate naval heroes. Known as the father of the British Navy, George Anson was one of these heroes.

Born in 1697, Anson joined the navy in his early teens and was promoted to commander just a decade later. His adventurous career took him around the world, including active service during the War of the Quadruple Alliance, stamping out smuggling between Britain and the Netherlands and escorting merchant convoys from the Carolinas.

In 1740 Anson was given a squadron of ships to “annoy and distress” Spanish possessions in South America. Two years later, his ship Centurion became the first British warship to enter Chinese waters when he reached Macao and Anson became only the second Englishman after Sir Francis Drake to circumnavigate the globe.

In 1743 Anson captured a galleon laden with silver as it sailed between Mexico and the Philippines. The resulting booty consisted of over a million pieces of eight (Spanish dollars) and more than 35,000 ounces of silver, worth £35 million in today’s money – it took thirty wagons to transport the treasure to the Tower of London. Anson’s cut was equivalent to more than £13,000,000.

With his newfound wealth and status as a national hero came political influence. Elected a Member of Parliament, he was then elevated to the peerage as Lord Anson and eventually appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. He ushered in a series of reforms of the navy, including introducing a standardised uniform, and helped spur the search for a cure for scurvy, which killed hundreds of Anson’s own crews over the years.

George Anson married Elizabeth Yorke, daughter of the Lord Chancellor, in 1748 but the couple had no children. He died on 6 June 1762. As well as the two Anson Places, a town in Maine, a borough in Charleston, eight Royal Navy warships and a nuclear submarine have also been named after him.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.