The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-19
LONDON STREET NAMES.
Effort to Do Away With Countless Rep
 etitions.

| Effort to Do Away With Countless Rep etitions
 l Few of the many people who have
 been discussing the naming of the new | thoroughfares from Holborn to the strand are aware how complex thing the street naming of London is. Fancy mother with 29,142 children faced sud | denly with the problem of christening twins. Yet this is really what has to be done in regard to the street and crescent about, to be made, for there is an excellent rule in London that the
 name of a new road must not be a du- plicate of one already existing.
 Under the London building act the county counsel has absolute control of the names of streets, and may change them at its pleasure. But the council is
 really only a sort of godmother, pro
 nouncing at the font name selected by
 another. The post office authorities are
 the real parents, for they are always
 consulted, and are allowed a veto on
 any name which will cause confusion.
 King Edward street. has been sug-
 gested, but there are already King Ed
 ward streets in Ellington Lambeth
 Mile-end and Mapping and one has
 only recently been abolished in the city.
 No more duplicates are needed: on the
 contrary, the authorities have for years
 been engaged in the herculean task of
 abolishing them Victoria" and "Al-
 bert were very common names for
 streets in the middle of the century
 There are seventy-eight streets, roads
 courts, crescents, groves, mansions news, places or terraces still named Albert and forty-two have been abolished already Victoria has ninety four streets, and thirty-five have been abolished; while sixty John streets, fif- ty Charles streets, tifty-four Cross streets, forty three George streets and large numbers of equally common names have been renamed by the coun- cil al the suggestion of the general post | office. A few years ago there were two | Duke streets close together in Oxford | street.
 Hundreds of small streets, places and terraces have also been abolished to | make up the few great thoroughfares radiating from central London through | the suburbs, which form such q useful aid to the stranger in finding his way about. What would visitor do nowa- days if he found eighty little streets in stead of the Old Kent road, seventy three in place of Holloway road and sixty seven in place of Fulham road? Yet such was the condition of things forty years ago. and the pedestrian who can now be directed along a big thor oughfare extending for mile or two would then find new name every few yards.
 In the city street names of real his
 orical interest are thickly clustered. 'Billingsgate'' carries Us back to Celtic times, and it is said that certain dis
 fnctive peculiarities of speech still lang round the locality. Waiting street" is Saxon, and, as every one knows, the cluster of enthusiastically named streets near St. PauPs carry us I Jack to pre- Reformation times. The tncient city wall and it's surroundings
 re recalled by such names as Barbican, Ground, Blshopsgate, Dow ate and Luugale. 'IiOlboth' Corner y "Oldborne"). Westbourne and Kill ,urn tell of streams which ran near the ity. Clerkenwell, Bridewell, Holywell, IT lambs Conduit and Shoreditch indicate 1 ur ancient water supply, Charing, 3rompton, Dalston, 1slington were vil- ages near London and Spitaltields, Coldbath Fields, Spa Fields, C Rosemary lane and Noting (Nutting) :, Hill were among the rural surroundings f the city. islands in the Thames were Chelsea, Battersea, Bermondsey nd Putney; and Austin Frtars, Friars, Minories and Savoy ecal monastic establishments. Spe- ial districts, markets and trades are 1