Russell Square - History

History

The square is named after the surname of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford, who developed the family's London landholdings in the 17th and 18th centuries, beginning with Covent Garden (Bedford Street). Russell Square was formed when new streets were laid out by the Duke on the site of the gardens of his former home Bedford House, their London house. Other local street names relating to the Duke of Bedford include Bedford Square, Bedford Place, Bedford Avenue, Bedford Row and Bedford Way; Woburn Square and Woburn Place (from Woburn Abbey); Tavistock Square, Tavistock Place and Tavistock Street (Marquess of Tavistock), and Thornhaugh Street (after a subsidiary title Baron of Thornhaugh). The street lamps around this area carry the Bedford Arms.

The square contained large terraced houses aimed mainly at upper-middle-class families. A number of the original houses survive, especially on the southern and western sides. Those to the west are occupied by the University of London, and there is a blue plaque on one at the north west corner commemorating that T. S. Eliot worked there for many years when he was poetry editor of Faber & Faber: a building now used by the School of Oriental and African Studies (a college of the University of London). Thomas Lawrence had a studio at number 67 (1805–1830). On the eastern side the Hotel Russell, built in 1898 to a design by Charles Fitzroy Doll, dominates (its builders were connected with the company which created RMS Titanic). Other past residents include the famous 19th Century architectural partnership of father and son, Philip and Philip Charles Hardwick who lived at number 60. Since 2004, the two buildings on the southern side, at numbers 46 and 47, are occupied by the Huron University USA in London. The Huron University has now been bought by Hult International Business School and has therefore changed its name. It has also allowed the old Huron to become a bigger school with many different campuses in Boston, Dubai, San Francisco.

In 1998, the London Mathematical Society moved from rooms in Burlington House to De Morgan House, at 57–58 Russell Square, in order to accommodate staff expansion. A near neighbour, at 52-53 Russell Square, is the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, which moved to the address in 2009.

In 2002, the square was re-landscaped in a style based on the original early 19th-century layout by Humphry Repton (1752–1818), and the café in the square was redeveloped. The centrepiece of the new design is a fountain with jets playing directly from the pavement, which have become popular with children in the summer. Managed by London Borough of Camden the freehold of the square remains with the Bedford Estate.