History
The area began to be developed in the industrial revolution. Northampton Square was first laid out for housing in 1832, taking its name from the local landowner, the Marquess of Northampton. A fountain in the square commemorates the 1885 restoration of the gardens by Shropshire magistrate Charles Walker, who had been born in Clerkenwell. Lady Margaret Georgiana Graham, daughter of William Compton, 4th Marquess of Northampton, opened the restored gardens on 8 July 1885.
The square has historically housed clockmakers, jewellers, silversmiths and other fine crafts. The print-maker George Baxter lived and worked at 11 Northampton Square from 1844-1860. The site is marked by a plaque on the modern building at that address. In 1878, Walter Thornbury reported that No. 35, Northampton Square was the home of the British Horological Institute, “for the cultivation of the science of horology, and its kindred arts and manufactures”.
Read more about this topic: Northampton Square
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“The whole history of civilisation is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)