The Location & History of Fitzrovia

Stretching from Euston Road in the north to Oxford Street in the south, Portland Place in the west to Gower Street in the east Modern Fitzrovia is a blend of commercial offices, shops, studios and residential accommodation. With arguably it’s most recognised modern building being the B.T. Tower.

Property development in the area north of Soho began in the 1700s and the desire for quick returns meant that the buildings were rapidly sold off to a variety of service industries. Most residential accommodation had insecure tenancy agreements and so attracted struggling artists and self-employed tradesmen, as well as rapidly growing immigrant groups. They took advantage of the cheap rooms available and thus gave Fitzrovia its distinctive diverse and bohemian character.

The Hon. Charles Fitzroy, who later became Lord Southampton, purchased the 15th century Tottenhall Manor and its freeholds in the 1700s. He developed Fitzroy Square where the Fitzrovia Festival has been held since the 1980s, and commissioned the Adam brothers as architects.

The Adam brothers were the leading classical architects of the time who designed the Adelphi and the facades of Portland Place. They designed the east and south sides of Fitzroy Square, with the west and north sides added in the 1820s. The original south side was damaged in the Second World War. It is his name that went to the square, a public house and eventually the whole area.

The writers and artists who went on frequent pub-crawls here, using the Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street as a base, probably coined the name - Fitzrovia - in the 1930s. In 1941 a British Council Plaque was placed on the house of Francisco De Miranda, who worked for the independence of Latin American republics. In 1811 he was declared the leader of newly independent Venezuela and in 1980 the house he lived in was to be pulled down and Roland Collins, a local artist, contacted Ambassador Coll Blasini who intervened and had to purchase not only the original house, but the ones either side as well. This additional space was converted into the Venezuelan Cultural Centre.

In Fitzroy Square, at the end of the 1800s, George Bernard Shaw lived at number 29, the same house later occupied by Virginia Woolf. In the 1920s Roger Fry, at number 33, founded the Omega Workshops to popularise Postimpressionist design with the involvement of members of the Bloomsbury Group.

The two French poets, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud shared lodgings in Howland Street in the 1870s. In July 1955 Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She lived in Goodwood Court, at the top end of Great Portland Street. The trial for 'crime of passion' lasted one and a half days, with the jury taking only twenty three minutes to reach their verdict.

In 1846 University College Hospital (UCH, now part of UCLH) was the scene of the first general anaesthetic operation. A leg was amputated in only thirty seconds. The UCH building is strongly rumoured to be possessed by two ghosts, Lizzie Church and Jeremy Bentham. Lizzie Church was a trainee nurse in the 1890s who accidentally administered a fatal dose of morphine to her lover, a patient at the time. She is said to appear at the beds of patients about to be injected with the same drug.

Jeremy Bentham, an inventor, law reformer and moral philosopher is said to chase staff around the hospital, frantically waving his walking stick at them. His stuffed body is displayed at the hospital.

Other notables who have either lived in or frequented Fitzrovia include Karl Marx, George Orwell, Aneurin Bevan and Jennie Lee.