Other famous names associated with the street include George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskill, Sylvia Pankhurst, and Henry James.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti also lived there with menagerie of exotic animals, including owls, kangaroos, wallabies, a racoon, a Canadian marmot, and laughing jackasses. He was discouraged from keeping peacocks because of the noise, but he did have a wombat called Top, which was his favourite pet.
The wombat was named after Rossetti’s friend and fellow artist William Morris, whose nickname from student days was ‘Topsy’. Morris’s wife Jane, who had an affair with Rossetti, was a favourite muse of his and perhaps the epitome of the pre-Raphaelite woman as depicted by the artist.
There is no Wombat Street in London, but there is a Peacock Street, probably named from the Peacock Brewery in Southwark.
thestreetnames 
7 responses to “Artists, peacocks, and wombats”
[…] plants. Sloane, who had purchased the Manor of Chelsea, comprising four acres of land, from Charles Cheyne, leased the land to the Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year in […]
[…] For instance, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s favourite pet (and he had a huge menagerie, much to the annoyance of his Chelsea neighbours) was a wombat called Top. London artist William Hogarth owned many pugs and painted a self-portrait […]
[…] Posted on August 19, 2014 | Leave a comment Following on from our last post about London’s wicked women, equality of the sexes demands that we should have a look at some of the bad (or eccentric) boys of London’s history, starting with one of the true bad boys of the Victorian age, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. […]
[…] case I need to redeem myself, there is a Lordship Place in Chelsea, near Cheyne Walk. It stands on what was the old Manor House belonging to the Lawrence […]
I like thestreetnames, in relation to our JMW Turner, we have now voted for the great artist to appear on a new £20 note in 2020, Threadneedle Street is a famous London Street so I enclose the following:
The genius ‘Painter of Light’ JMW Turner is a brilliant choice, and as I informed the Bank of England, I have links to the artist and I also have an ancestor who is the son of a draftsman called Sir Percivall Pott, Queen Victoria’s surgeon who lived at the site of the Bank of England at Threadneedle Street. Our relative, Miss Constance Pott, the pioneering graphic designer and etcher produced a picture titled New Bank of England. There is much more family history in the book TURNER TREES – link to Facebook page can be found below:
https://www.facebook.com/Turner-Trees-1580214022276505/
Thank you so much for that; what a great series of family connections you have. I look forward to reading your family history. Elizabeth
Thank you Elizabeth, I’ve just told my wife the queen is going to read my book, Yes.