Stabroek was the name of Georgetown, Guyana, between 1784 and 1812. The town was established in 1782 during a brief occupation by the French of the Dutch colony of Demerara. The original name of Longchamps was changed to Stabroek in 1784, after Nicholaas Geelvinck (1732 — 1787), Lord of Stabroek, the then President of the Dutch West India Company. The city's name changed again in 1812 when, under British rule, it became Georgetown. A ward of the city, one fourth of a mile broad and one mile long, retains the name Stabroek.