Estates in Bloomsbury

1 Duke of Bedford
2 City of London Corporation
3 Capper Mortimer
4 Fitzroy (Duke of Grafton)
5 Somers
6 Skinners' (Tonbridge)
7 Battle Bridge
8 Lucas
9 Harrison
10 Foundling Hospital
11 Rugby
12 Bedford Charity (Harpur)
13 Doughty
14 Gray's Inn
15 Bainbridge–Dyott (Rookeries)

Area between the Foundling and Harrison estates: Church land

Grey areas: fragmented ownership and haphazard development; already built up by 1800

About the Duke of Bedford’s Estate

For many people the Bedford estate and Bloomsbury are synonymous, although sales of land in the twentieth century have reduced the original 112 acres to a mere 20 (Survey of London, vol. 5, 1914; Shirley Green, Who Owns London?, 1986)

The Bloomsbury holdings of the Duke of Bedford originated as the estate of Thomas Wriothesley, later Earl of Southampton, who acquired them at the dissolution of the monasteries in 1545 (Camden History Society, Streets of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia, 1997)

This estate was inherited by Rachel (née Wriothesley), daughter of the fourth Earl of Southampton, when the Southampton title became extinct; it passed into the Russell family, Dukes of Bedford, through her marriage to the heir of the first Duke of Bedford

It was the widow of the fourth Duke, Gertrude Leveson-Gower, who was a prime mover in the residential development of the estate, which began in the late eighteenth century and was continued by her grandson, the fifth Duke, in the early nineteenth century (Camden History Society, Streets of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia, 1997)

Much of this development was in the form of “wide streets and grand squares fit for the gentry” (Camden History Society, Streets of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia, 1997); Donald Olsen described it as “the systematic transformation of the pastures of northern Bloomsbury into a restricted upper-middle class suburb” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

It was a well-timed development; the Bedford Estate’s Bloomsbury rental was worth about £13,800 in 1805, but jumped to £17,242 in 1806 because of all the new buildings (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

By 1816 it was nearer £25,000, and by 1819 the London rental income was as much as all the other Bedford estates put together; by 1880 it was worth £65,791 (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

The very northern part of the estate was, however, swampy and more difficult to build on, a problem exacerbated by the building slump of the 1830s, which led to areas like Gordon Square being part-developed and left unfinished for decades (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

For the crucial part played by Thomas Cubitt in the development of this estate, see Hermione Hobhouse, Thomas Cubitt: Master Builder (1971)

The size and quality of the houses meant that for the most part, the Bedford estate was never likely to turn into a slum: “Except for Abbey Place and the other narrow courts east of Woburn Place, the Bloomsbury estate had no slums. Even its narrow streets south of Great Russell Street—such as Gilbert, Little Russell, and Silver streets—were, if undeniably lower-class in character, far superior to the streets just west and south of the estate” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

However, as the area became more popular and convenient as a location for institutions, the Bedford estate had to fight to preserve its genteel residential character; it found itself “with the task of preventing, or at least discouraging, the conversion of dwelling houses into private hotels, boarding houses, institutions, offices, and shops” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

In 1886 the Bedford steward reported 140 tenement houses in Bloomsbury; Little Russell Street had 21 of them (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

“By the middle of the century many of the huge houses in Bloomsbury had been illegally converted into private hotels...By 1892 Stutfield [the Bedford estate steward] had come to regard Montague Place as a lost cause” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

By the 1890s, too, the estate had lost the battle to keep itself separate from the flow of traffic and pedestrians, originally enforced by a system of lodges, gates, and residents’ tickets of entry: “The five lodges and gates on the Bloomsbury estate—in Upper Woburn Place, Endsleigh Street, Georgiana Street (later Taviton Street), Gordon Street (originally William Street), and Torrington Place—had all been erected by 1831, presumably by Thomas Cubitt” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

The removal of all these gates, except the one in Endsleigh Street, was authorised in 1890 by Act of Parliament; that of Endsleigh Street itself was authorised along with any other remaining gates in London in 1893 (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

Developments in transport during the century had affected the estate for decades before the 1890s: “The suburban train and the season ticket reduced the significance of Bloomsbury’s proximity to the City and the Inns of Court. To make matters worse, three of the railways chose to locate their London termini virtually at the entrances to the Bedford estate, thereby depreciating its residential value” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

However, the estate “was generally successful in keeping bus and tram lines off its residential streets. For a long time the estate was able to exclude omnibuses from Hart Street (now Bloomsbury Way)...The 1806 Bloomsbury Square Act forbade hackney coaches from standing for hire in the square or within 300 feet of it. In 1886 the Bedford Office attempted, without success, to eject the cab ranks that had just been established in Tavistock and Russell squares” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

The estate’s desire to maintain a certain standard of living for its residents included attention to public health issues: “In 1854 the Duke had made at his own expense sewers in Tavistock Mews, Great Russell Street, Little Russell Street, Gilbert Street, and Rose Street. The estate also was engaged at the time in a programme of installing water closets in the houses on its property, and connecting them with the new sewers, as required by law...In a letter to the Lancet that year the physician to the Bloomsbury Dispensary praised the Duke’s sanitary projects, and attributed to them the mildness of the recent cholera epidemic on his estate” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

Along with concerns for the health of the residents, the estate continued to try to impose restrictions on what kind of tenants would be allowed in its houses: “The number of public houses and hotels on the estate fell from seventy-four in 1854 to fifty in 1869. By 1889 there were forty-one, and in 1893 only thirty-four...Such practices followed logically from the consistent desire to maintain Bloomsbury as an area of decency, uniformity, restraint, and above all of respectability” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

The desire to maintain the integrity and amenities of the estate persisted throughout the nineteenth century: “In 1895 the Duke decided to turn the waste ground north of Tavistock Place North and behind the houses in Upper Woburn Place into a lawn tennis ground” for some of the local tenants (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

Efforts to continue development and improvement in response to changing circumstances were assisted by the length of the leases granted on the estate right from the start of residential development in the 1770s: a standard 99 years: thus “[t]he later years of the century saw a great deal of new building in Bloomsbury as the original building leases fell in” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

The estate seized the opportunity for wholesale redevelopment of streets which were no longer suited to their location or which no longer fulfilled their original purpose, mews premises being a good example of the latter

“In 1880 the estate took down the block of houses between Store Street and Chenies Street, from the City of London’s estate on the west to Chenies Mews on the east...The estate widened Chenies Mews and formed it into the present Ridgmount Street. It proposed to let most of the vacant ground for institutions or factories, as it did not think the location suitable for dwelling houses” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

“In 1898 and 1899 the estate demolished the whole of the stable premises in Southampton and Montague Mews (between Southampton Row, Bedford Place, and Montague Street) and had the sites landscaped. The Duke had similar plans for Tavistock and Woburn Mews (east of Woburn Place) before he decided to sell the property to the London County Council for a housing scheme” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

“Far from being typical, the Bedford estate may well have been the best managed urban estate in England” (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

Great Russell Street

Also known as Bloomsbury Place (eastern end)

It is in the south of the Bedford estate, below the British Museum, running right through from Tottenham Court Road to Bloomsbury Square (although its extreme eastern end was originally known as Bloomsbury Place)

It was developed around 1670, and follows the site of an old path called Green Lane

Great Russell Street was the northernmost boundary of development in 1720; north of here was farmland farmed by the Capper family, for whom Pancras Street was renamed Capper Street

It takes its name from the family name of the Dukes of Bedford

Strype described it in 1720 as “a very handsome large and well built Street, graced with the best Buildings, and the best inhabited by the Nobility and Gentry, especially the North side, as having Gardens behind the Houses: and the Prospect of the pleasant Fields up to Hamsted and Highgate. Insomuch that this Place by Physicians is esteemed the most healthful of any in London” (John Strype, Stow’s Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, Corrected, Improved and Very Much Enlarged, 1720)

In the eighteenth century it had many large houses, including the residence of architect Christopher Wren in the early part of the century

Decades later, in the 1770s, the noted physician William Battie lived there, and architect John Nash built elegant houses there, occupying one himself for a while (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

It had, however, begun to be more run-down and commercial (especially on the south side) by the nineteenth century

The north side was grander, in part because of the British Museum, on the site of the original Montagu House (1678; rebuilt 1686) which it first occupied and then replaced

The site between the south side of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road to the west was occupied by the Meux brewery

No. 89 was for some years the grand house of famous tragic actor John Kemble, who bought it in the late eighteenth century, and his wife Priscilla (formerly Brereton; née Hopkins); Kemble’s father Roger, also an actor, died there in 1802, and the Kembles had sold the house by 1820 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

Samuel Bosanquet, of the Huguenot banking family Bosanquet & Co, was born here in 1800 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 62 (site now occupied by Museum Mansions) was where the Bloomsbury Dispensary was founded in 1801 by George Pinckard and others

The brewer Harvey Combe held legendary dinners at his house here in the late Georgian period (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The bookseller and printer John Major had premises here in the early part of the nineteenth century (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The mathematician Mary Somerville (née Fairfax) lived in a house here in the early nineteenth century when she was married to her first husband, Samuel Greig; their elder son, barrister and amateur scientist Woronzow Greig, was born here in 1805, but the family returned to Scotland on the death of Samuel Greig two years later (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The merchant Antony Gibbs lived here with his wife Dorothea (née Hucks) and their children until 1809 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The eminent eye surgeon John Stevenson was living here in 1813 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 50 was established as Sass’s School for Drawing and Painting in 1818; it moved to Charlotte (now Bloomsbury) Street in 1820

No. 77 housed the architectural practice of Lewis Cubitt, one of the builders of Bloomsbury, in the 1820s (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 104 was the business address of engraver Samuel Cousins in the 1820s, when he set up in independent practice (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 105 was the home of architects Augustus Charles Pugin and his son Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin; Pugin senior began taking in pupils there in the early 1820s, and died there in 1832 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The architect Benjamin Ferrey studied and boarded with the Pugins at no. 105 from about 1825 to 1832, and later (1834–1836) went into partnership in Great Russell Street with fellow pupil Thomas Larkins Walker (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 116 was home to artist William Redmore Bigg, who died there in 1828 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The writer and journalist John Taylor died here in 1832 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 56 was the home of engraver Philip Audinet, who died there in 1837 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 14 (now the sole eighteenth-century house surviving in its south side row) was used by Dickens as the home for Charles Kitterbell in his story ‘The Bloomsbury Christening’

The last part of the original house forming the British Museum was demolished in 1845

The journalist Frederick Tomlins had a bookshop here in the late 1840s (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 61 was briefly the shop of antiquarian bookseller and publisher Bernard Quaritch in 1847 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 28 held the studio of portrait painter John Hayes from 1849 to 1851 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The south side of the street was rebuilt in the middle of the nineteenth century by the Bedford estate No. 24 was where Scottish medical bibliographer James Kennedy died in 1851 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 24 was where Scottish medical bibliographer James Kennedy died in 1851 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 33 was the business premises of John Thistlewood Davenport, chemist, who went into partnership with J. Collis Browne in 1856, selling Browne’s patent remedy against cholera (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 60 was the home of artist George Boyce; he was visited there by Ruskin in 1854 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 105 was the home of pioneering photographer Frederick Archer, who died there in 1857 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The linguist, and former teacher of Dickens, Louis Prévost, died here in 1858, having spent much of his life studying languages in the British Museum (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 25 was the home of Moses Margoliouth, Polish scholar who converted from Judaism to Christianity, from 1858 to 1861, while he was working on a new edition of the Hebrew Old Testament (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones lived here with his wife Georgiana (née Macdonald) from 1861 to 1865; their son Philip was born there in 1861 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The printer John Russell had premises here in the 1860s (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

A. & F. Pears, soapmakers, also had premises here in the 1860s (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 67 was where portrait painter ‘Pope’ Davis died in 1862 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 91 was the home of artist and novelist George du Maurier and his wife Emma (née Wightwick) from their marriage in 1863 until 1868 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The travel pioneer Thomas Cook opened his first London office at no. 59 in 1863; Bedford estate restrictions on the advertising of trade led to its being known as Cook’s British Museum Boarding House (Peter Gibson, The Capital Companion, 1985), and Cook’s travellers could indeed stay there in the 1870s for 6s per day including meals (Cook’s Tourist’s Handbook for Southern Italy, 1875)

No. 89 was the home of dissenter and homeopathic doctor John Epps, who died there in 1869 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 46 housed the studio of artist and engraver Randolph Caldecott in the 1870s (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The poet ‘Evelyn Douglas’ (John Evelyn Barlas) took rooms here to study after the death of his mother in 1878; he had also converted to socialism by the time he left a year later (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 115 was the home of hosier John Arthur Turnbull in 1879, when he married Ellen (née Glaisher),daughter of a bookseller; he went on to found the high-class outfitters Turnbull & Asser with Ernest Asser (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

Nos 92–93 was the second location for newly-founded chemists S. M. Burroughs & Co in the late 1870s, shortly before its founder, Silas Mainville Burroughs, invited his fellow American Henry Wellcome into an ill-advised partnership with him (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 77 was the home of church and hospital architect Thomas Wyatt, who died there in 1880 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

In 1880 the “professsional” resident of no. 57 Great Russell Street was advertising in The Times for a “coloured man-servant” (The Times, 19 October 1880, 21 October 1880)

No. 66 was the home of John Tuckett, bookbinder and dealer, whose extensive collection of topographical, genealogical, and antiquarian books was auctioned off in January 1881 after his retirement aged 53 (The Times, 31 January 1881)

No. 13 was the home in the 1880s of Dr S. R. Lovett, the Medical Officer of Health for St Giles (Charles Dickens (jr), Dickens’s Dictionary of London 1888: An Unconventional Handbook (1888)

Margaret Harkness lived in a house here in the late nineteenth century; in 1890 her second cousin Beatrice Potter met Sidney Webb here (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for Beatrice Webb)

No. 46 held the office and residence of architect Stanley Adshead and his wife Mary (née Blackie) from 1898; their only child, artist Mary Adshead, was born there in 1904 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

Nos 98–99 and 106–107 (north side) survive from the original development of the street in the seventeenth century, while nos 100–102 stand on the site of Thanet House and may incorporate parts of the old house