One man’s mission to unite the Ipswiches of the world has uncovered some weird and wonderful facts. Did you know there’s a species of sparrow named ‘Ipswich’? What about a strain of salmonella? Ipswich First learns more about Steve Pestle’s passion for all things Ipswich.
Steve Pestle calls Ipswich home. Not the Ipswich in Massachusetts, Virginia or South Dakota, and certainly not the little group of uninhabited islands at the southern tip of Chile. Not even Google Maps can find that place.
A lifelong resident of Ipswich in the UK, Steve started a website named Planet Ipswich for a simple enough reason – “it was something that no one else had ever done so I took it upon myself to rectify this shameful oversight!”
Steve’s research uncovered cities, towns, counties, ships and roads named ‘Ipswich’. It was all fairly standard stuff, until he started digging a little deeper.
“The most surprising thing I found while researching for the site, apart from the Ipswiches that I didn’t know about, was the number of things that have been named after Ipswich,” he said.
“We have the Ipswich sparrow from North America and the Ipswichian Interglacial Period in England. We also have more than 50 scientific names of plants and animals with names derived from ‘Ipswich’.
“There’s even a strain of salmonella called salmonella Ipswich, aren’t we lucky!
“It all goes to show that, in the English speaking world at least, Ipswich is a global brand name.”
Four things named ‘Ipswich’
Putting Ipswiches on the map
“One of the big coincidences with the three biggest Ipswiches – England, Queensland and Massachusetts – is that they’re all on or close to the east coast of their respective countries,” Steve said.
“Because most Ipswiches were named by people from Ipswich in England, Queensland being the exception in this regard, there is a common heritage between the cities and towns.
“My message to the people of Ipswich, Queensland is to be proud of the name of your city and try to forge links with people from other Ipswiches around the world whenever you can.”
