Friends Meeting House, Euston from Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1 - geograph

Endsleigh Gardens is a street in the

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest ...

district of central London, in the

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London borough in Inner London. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and S ...

. It runs south-west to north-east from

Gordon Street Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Clan Gordon, ...

Woburn Place The A4200 is a major thoroughfare in central London. It runs between the A4 at Aldwych, to the A400 Hampstead Road/Camden High Street, at Mornington Crescent tube station. Kingsway Kingsway is a major road in central London, designat ...

. The south-west end becomes Gower Place after the junction with Gordon Street. Taviton Street and

Endsleigh Street Endsleigh Street is in the Bloomsbury district of central London, in the London Borough of Camden. It connects Endsleigh Gardens to the north to Endsleigh Place and Tavistock Square to the south. Former residents According to the ''Survey of Lo ...

run off the south side. Endsleigh Gardens was formerly the south side of

Euston Square Euston Square is a large square in the London Borough of Camden in Central London. It lies on Euston Road, and Euston railway station and Euston bus station are on its northernmost side. Although “Euston Square” strictly refers to the squ ...

, which in 1878 was the site of the "Euston Square Murder". In 1879 the

Metropolitan Board of Works The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of local government in a wide area of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, from December 1855 until the establishment of the London Coun ...

renamed the street Endsleigh Gardens in response to local requests.

Euston Square Murder

Police News Euston Square Mystery cover Hannah Dobbs

Endsleigh Gardens was originally the southern part of Euston Square. In 1877 or 1878, number four Euston Square was the site of a murder that became popularly known as the "Euston Square Murder" after the body of Matilda Hacker was found in the coal cellar of the house in 1879. She had last been seen in 1877. Hannah Dobbs, a former servant at the house and mistress of the leaseholder Severin Bastendorff, was arrested after it was found that she had pawned some of Hacker's possessions. In 1879 she was tried for murder at the

Old Bailey The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...

, but acquitted due to lack of evidence.Unsolved murders of women in Victorian London.
Jan Bondeson, The History Press. Retrieved 21 March 2018.

Renaming

As of 25 September 1879, the

of London recorded the receipt of a letter from the Vestry of Saint Pancras, asking that the south side of Euston Square be renamed Endsleigh Gardens, and the houses renumbered. The vestry had received the request from

George Cubitt George Cubitt, 1st Baron Ashcombe, (4 June 1828 – 26 February 1917) of Denbies House, Dorking, Surrey, was a British politician and peer, a son of Thomas Cubitt, the leading London builder and property developer of his day. Education and c ...

, M. P., a freeholder of the south side of Euston Square, along with a petition signed by "nearly the whole of the leaseholders and occupiers of the houses there". The vestry meeting had voted in favour, 69 to 3. As of 28 November 1879, a committee reported to the Metropolitan Board of Works in favour of the request, and as of 5 December 1879, the change was moved, seconded and resolved. The reasons for the request are not recorded in the Board of Works' minutes. Some accounts suggest that the name was changed to avoid the notoriety of the Euston Square Murder."Euston Road"
in As early as 1884 ''The Building News'' noted, in discussing various name changes, that "A little while before the inhabitants of the north icside of Euston-square tried to bury the murderous memories attached thereto beneath the name of Endsleigh-gardens."

Buildings

Friends House Friends House is a multi-use building at 173 Euston Road in Euston, central London, that houses the central offices of British Quakers. The building is also the principal venue for North West London Meeting and the Britain Yearly Meeting The ...

is on the north side of the street between Endsleigh Gardens and the

Euston Road Euston Road is a road in Central London that runs from Marylebone Road to King's Cross. The route is part of the London Inner Ring Road and forms part of the London congestion charge zone boundary. It is named after Euston Hall, the family s ...

. A 1953

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

map shows on the south side the Endsleigh Hotel on the corner with Gordon Street, a

YWCA The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries. The World office is currently based in Geneva, Sw ...

hostel and the Caledonian Christian Club between Taviton Street and Endsleigh Street, and the Cora Hotel at the east end on the corner with Upper Woburn Place. On the north side is Drayton House on the corner with Gordon Street, Friends House, and a weights and measures office for the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kn ...

Notable residents

Residents of the street have included: *No 5.

William Michael Rossetti William Michael Rossetti (25 September 1829 – 5 February 1919) was an English writer and critic. Early life Born in London, Rossetti was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti and his wife Frances Rossetti ''née'' Polidor ...

, writer and critic, lived there from 1868 to 1891 *No 13. Thomas J. Judkin, reverend and painter; and, James Hamilton, minister and religious author *No 16. Rev.

Henry Stebbing Henry Stebbing (1687–1763) was an English churchman and controversialist, who became archdeacon of Wilts. Life Baptised at Walton, Suffolk on 19 August 1687, he was the fourth son of John Stebbing (1647–1728), a grocer of Walton, by his wife ...

, man of letters and cleric *No 18. Sir Percy Bunting, journalist On 10 September 1889, the poet and novelist

Amy Levy Amy Judith Levy (10 November 1861 – 9 September 1889) was an English essayist, poet, and novelist best remembered for her literary gifts; her experience as the second Jewish woman at Cambridge University, and as the first Jewish student at N ...

killed herself at the family home at No 7, aged 27, by

carbon monoxide poisoning Carbon monoxide poisoning typically occurs from breathing in carbon monoxide (CO) at excessive levels. Symptoms are often described as " flu-like" and commonly include headache, dizziness, weakness, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion. Large ...

after suffering from depression.The tragic poet Oscar Wilde called a genius.
Jennifer Lipman, ''Jewish Chronicle'', 26 April 2013. Retrieved 21 March 2018. There has been some campaigning for a

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term ...

there to remember her.

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

described her as "a girl who has a touch of genius in her work". In the 1890s, there were reports of prostitution in the area. Resident James Stock complained to the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

of "the fearful prevalence… of a gross state of street prostitution attended by features of a very disgusting character, particularly between the hours of 10 and 12 at which it is not fit for any respectable female to walk about and young men cannot do so without molestation."

Historic maps

File:Euston Square area, Ordnance Survey map 1874.jpg, Euston Square on an 1874 Ordnance Survey map File:Euston Square area, Ordnance Survey map 1895.jpg, Endsleigh Gardens on an 1895 Ordnance Survey map after renaming File:Euston Square and Endsleigh Gardens area, Ordnance Survey map 1953.jpg, 1953 Ordnance Survey map1953 Ordnance Survey map, Digimap. Retrieved 5 March 2018.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 51, 31, 36.7, N, 00, 07, 49.6, W, scale:1563_region:GB, display=title Bloomsbury Streets in the London Borough of Camden