What's in a Prague street name

Havlovického was built in 1935.

Josef Regner was born in Havlovice, near Trutnov, in 1794, the son of a miller (his mill, Regnerův mlýn, is still standing) and fervent Czech patriot.

He studied philosophy at Charles Ferdinand University in Prague, and then theology at the seminary in Hradec Králové. He first served as a priest in Náchod in 1817.

In 1820, he and his friend, Josef Myslimír Ludvík (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/01/10/prague-4-day-275-ludvikova/) founded a fruit tree nursery and a flower garden.

Regner (also known as Havlovický) devoted himself to noble courses throughout his clerical career: for example, he worked as a teacher, a farmer, a carer for the sick during a cholera epidemic in the 1830s, and as the owner of a mine which provided employment to those most in need of it.

Josef Regner Havlovický died in 1852. He then appeared in Alois Jirásek’s four-part novel U nás. Jirásek had been born in 1851 in Hronov, and so, while he was less than a year old when Havlovický died, he would have heard tales about him throughout his childhood.

There’s a memorial to Regner in Havlovice: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Monument_to_Josef_Regner_in_Havlovice#/media/File:Havlovice_Regner.jpg/2.