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Frith Street is in the
The coffee shop
LondonTown.com information
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Frith Street Gallery
59–60 Frith Street {{Soho Streets in the City of Westminster History of television in the United Kingdom Streets in Soho
Frith Street is in the Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was develop ...
area of London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. To the north is Soho Square
Soho Square is a garden square in Soho, London, hosting since 1954 a ''de facto'' public park let by the Soho Square Garden Committee to Westminster City Council. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, and a much weathered s ...
and to the south is Shaftesbury Avenue
Shaftesbury Avenue is a major road in the West End of London, named after The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. It runs north-easterly from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus. From Piccadilly Cir ...
. The street crosses Old Compton Street
Old Compton Street is a road that runs east–west through Soho in the West End of London.
History
The street was named after Henry Compton who raised funds for a local parish church, eventually dedicated as St Anne's Church in 1686. Th ...
, Bateman Street and Romilly Street.
History
Frith Street was laid out in the late 1670s and early 1680s and evidently named after Richard Frith, a wealthy builder. In the 18th and early 19th centuries many artistic and literary people came to live in Soho, and several of them settled in this street. The painterJohn Alexander Gresse
John Alexander Gresse (1741–1794), was an English painter and drawing-master.
Early life
Gresse was born in London in 1741. His father was a native of Rolle, on the Lake of Geneva, and owned a small property close to Oxford Street, on which ...
was here in 1784, the year of his death. John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke (25 June 1736 – 18 March 1812), known as John Horne until 1782 when he added the surname of his friend William Tooke to his own, was an England, English clergyman, politician, and Philology, philologist. Associated with radica ...
, philologist and politician, lived here in about 1804; John Constable
John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
lived here in 1810–11; John Bell, the sculptor, in 1832–33; and William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English lan ...
wrote his last essays while he was lodging at no. 6 Frith Street prior to his death there in 1830. The lithographic
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
Alfred Concanen
Alfred Concanen (1835 – 10 December 1886) was, for over twenty-five years, one of the leading lithographers of the Victorian era, best remembered for his illustrated sheet music covers for songs made popular by famous music hall performers ...
had a studio at no. 12 for many years.Irons, Neville - 'Alfred Concanen, Master Lithographer' ''Irish Arts Review'' Vol. 4, No. 3 (Autumn 1987) pgs 37-41
Samuel Romilly
Sir Samuel Romilly (1 March 1757 – 2 November 1818), was a British lawyer, politician and legal reformer. From a background in the commercial world, he became well-connected, and rose to public office and a prominent position in Parliament. A ...
, the legal reformer, was born at no. 18 in 1757, and the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
lodged at no. 20 with his father and sister in 1764–65. In 1816 the actor William Charles Macready
William Charles Macready (3 March 179327 April 1873) was an English actor.
Life
He was born in London the son of William Macready the elder, and actress Christina Ann Birch. Educated at Rugby School where he became headboy, and where now the t ...
was living at no. 64, and over a hundred years later, from 1924 to 1926 John Logie Baird
John Logie Baird FRSE (; 13 August 188814 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first live working television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the first publicly demo ...
lived at no. 22 where on 26 January 1926 he demonstrated television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
to members of the Royal Institution
The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...
.
In 1989 Frith Street Gallery was founded here, originally occupying two adjacent townhouses. Initially it was a forum for contemporary drawing, then it expanded into a wide range of artistic media. In 2007 the gallery moved to Golden Square
Golden Square, in Soho, the City of Westminster, London, is a mainly hardscaped garden square planted with a few mature trees and raised borders in Central London flanked by classical office buildings. Its four approach ways are north and sout ...
, just a short distance from Frith Street.
Today
The coffee shop Bar Italia
Bar Italia is an Italian café located on Frith Street in the Soho district of London.
Location and notable events
On 26 January 1926, John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of television at 22 Frith Street, the building where ...
occupies no. 22 and there is 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 i ...
over the door to commemorate Baird's TV experiments. Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club that has operated in Soho, London, since 1959.
History
The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was set up and managed by musicians Ronnie Sco ...
has been at no. 47 since 1965.
In popular culture
Frith Street is mentioned twice in the lyrics of the 2007 song '' Glorious'' byAustralia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n-British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
singer Natalie Imbruglia
Natalie Jane Imbruglia ( , ; born 4 February 1975) is an Australian singer and actress. In the early 1990s, she played Beth Brennan in the Australian soap opera '' Neighbours''. Three years after leaving the programme, she began a singing car ...
, in the first verse and at the end of the song.
See also
*20 Frith Street
20 Frith Street is a building in the Soho district of London. It is located on the east side of Frith Street, close to the junction with Old Compton Street. The building which currently occupies the site of 20 Frith Street was built in 1858 by W ...
* Ethel Kibblewhite
Ethel (Dolly) Kibblewhite (1873–1947Ferguson, 2012, p. 273.) was the host of an important artistic and literary salon in London in the 1910s. The salon was held at her home at 67 Frith Street and presided over by the poet and critic T.E. Hulm ...
* List of eponymous roads in London
The following is a partial list of eponymous roads in London – that is, roads named after people – with notes on the link between the road and the person. Examples of reigning monarchs, Prime Ministers etc. with no inherent geographic link a ...
References
External links
LondonTown.com information
an
of Frith Street
Frith Street Gallery
59–60 Frith Street {{Soho Streets in the City of Westminster History of television in the United Kingdom Streets in Soho