thestreetnames

I’ve been holding off but it’s finally time to look at some streets with parliamentary connections of one kind or another.

Barbon Alley was named for Nicholas Barbon, a property developer and the son of Praisegod Barebone, the Parliamentary nominee for the City of London and the man for whom Oliver Cromwell’s Barebones Parliament was named. 

Parliament had been pared down by the simple method used by Colonel Thomas Pride to prevent Parliament from agreeing on the Treaty of Newport to reinstate King Charles I: Pride blocked 231 known supporters of the treaty from entering Parliament and imprisoned 45 of them for a few days. The remaining free members then became the Rump Parliament.

Oliver Cromwell became disenchanted when it became clear that the main concern of the Rump Parliament was to create legislation that would ensure the survival of the Parliament. He lost patience after learning that Parliament was attempting to stay in session despite an agreement to dissolve, and attended a sitting of Parliament to lambaste the Rump Members. “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” he declared.

Barebone’s Parliament was then established: 144 Members of Parliament who were not elected, but selected by Cromwell’s officers for their religious fervour.

Not far away is Whitehall, location of the palace of Whitehall, which was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698 when most of its structures were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII was a fan of the bear baiting, and had a bear pit built in the grounds of Whitehall palace so that royalty could watch the sport in comfort from the palace windows. Henry VIII’s daughter, Elizabeth I, was also a big fan and overruled parliament when the members tried to ban bear baiting on Sundays.

Bridle Lane in Soho takes its name from John Brydall, a law writer who became secretary to a Master of the Rolls (the second most senior judge in England and Wales after the Lord Chief Justice), who rejoiced in the name of Sir Harbottle Grimston. Sir Harbottle was a Member of Parliament during Charles I’s reign and was a great defender of the privileges of the House of Commons following Charles I’s unsuccessful attempt in 1642 to arrest five members. He made a fiery speech in defence of the rights of MPs in which he spoke of “the drooping Spirits of men groaning under the burthen of tyrannicall oppression inflicted on them unjustly and maliciously by unmercifull and wicked men that have usurped to themselves places and offices of power and authority both in State and Church”.

There is a Farthing Alley in Bermondsey which took its name from Aleyn Ferthing, a Southwark representative in the 14th-century parliament.

Hare Court, part of London’s Inner Temple, was named for Sir Nicholas Hare, who paid for the building of the court. Hare Master of Rolls to Queen Mary whose Parliament, on the 12th of November 1555, re-established Catholicism. (The restoration of Catholicism lasted only a short time; in 1558, on Mary’s death her half-sister Elizabeth I reversed it.)

Milk Street was the birthplace of Thomas More, who entered Parliament in 1504, was knighted in 1521 and became Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor in 1529 following the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. More was later to oppose the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and also refuse to take an oath renouncing the authority of the pope over that of the king. That led to him being tried and convicted of treason, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Let’s finish not with a street, but with a tower: the Elizabeth Tower where Big Ben is located. At the top of the tower is a light that was installed at the wishes of Queen Victoria so that she could see which of her Members of Parliament were sitting after dark.