Utrecht
“The town within a game park”

The origin of the name “Utrecht”

It is generally known that Utrecht is the name of a very well known city in Holland, and that Dr. H.E Faure, the minister of the Dutch Reformed Church congregation in Pietermaritzburg and founder of local congregation on 19 November 1854, persuaded the Church Council to adopt the name Utrecht for the congregation. This occurred in March 1856. And so the town, established in August 1855 and known by the name of Shoonstroom, also adopted the name as did the district which was known as the “Buffelsrivierse Maatschappij” since 1847. Dr. Faure studied for the ministry at the University of Utrecht, as did his father and uncle. Many Afrikaaners, through the years, studied at the University, amongst them Dr. D.F Malan.

But, what is the origin of this somewhat unusual name; the name that causes many people some difficulty to pronounce correctly. The origin of the name goes back to Roman times. In 9A.D the Roman Empire decided that the Rhine River will remain the boundary of the empire and so they erected forts at many places along the river. These forts were also the point of entry into and departure from the empire. Such a fort was known as a “traiectum” and during the years the Dutch people came to pronounce this word as “Utrecht”. A roman fort and crossing along the Rhine was thus known as a “trecht”. There were therefore many number of “trechts”. The city of Utrecht originated on a site of such a “trecht”. In due course it become necessary to distinguish among the different “trechts”, such as Upper Trecht (later the city of Maastricht) and Lower Trecht (Uut-Trecht or simply Utrecht). By 870 A.D the name Utrecht for this town was commonly used.

Seven of the streets of Utrecht were named after streets in Utrecht, Holland. They are Bloem Street, Kerk Street, Voor Street, Hoog Street, Rozen Street, Dom Street and Lelie Street. The latter was closed when the Bergsig School was built.