Estates in Bloomsbury

1 Duke of Bedford
2 City of London Corporation
3 Capper Mortimer
4 Fitzroy (Duke of Grafton)
5 Somers
6 Skinners' (Tonbridge)
7 Battle Bridge
8 Lucas
9 Harrison
10 Foundling Hospital
11 Rugby
12 Bedford Charity (Harpur)
13 Doughty
14 Gray's Inn
15 Bainbridge–Dyott (Rookeries)

Area between the Foundling and Harrison estates: Church land

Grey areas: fragmented ownership and haphazard development; already built up by 1800

About the Doughty Estate

The Doughty estate in the south-east of Bloomsbury was part of extensive lands owned by the Doughty and Tichborne families, mainly outside London (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)

Its proximity to the Foundling Estate meant that in the late eighteenth century it was involved in exchanges of land to enable the Foundling Estate to connect its new residential developments with the rest of London (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)

This also prompted the Doughty estate owners to begin developing their land (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)

The estate is sometimes also known as the Brownlow–Doughty estate, after William Brownlow, who built the streets in the late seventeenth century, and Elizabeth Brownlow, who had married into the Doughty family

In 1867 the estate was embroiled in the celebrated Tichborne case, when a claimant came forward asserting his identity as Sir Roger Charles Doughty-Tichborne, which would have entitled him to the Doughty estate in Bloomsbury along with other property (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for Tichborne claimant)

Sir Edward Doughty, né Tichborne, came into possession of the Doughty estate in 1826 from his cousin, Mrs Elizabeth Doughty, daughter of George Brownlow-Doughty and granddaughter of the fourth Baronet Tichborne; he changed his name to Doughty as a condition of the settlement (Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 193, May 1853)

Prior to this, it was Henry Doughty who had been negotiating land deals with the Foundling Estate on behalf of the Doughty Estate (Survey of London, vol. 24, 1952)

The entire estate was sold off in 1921; Joseph Henry Bernard Doughty Tichborne, The Doughty Estate, Holborn (1921) has details and plans of the property included in the sale

Great James Street

Not to be confused with James Street, and Lower James Street, Westminster

It is in the south-east of Bloomsbury, running north from Theobald’s Road to the east end of Chapel Street

It was developed from about 1721

It was named after James Burgess, co-developer of the estate

No. 25 was the home of architect John Shaw and his wife Elizabeth (née Whitfield); their son, architect John Shaw junior, was born there in 1803 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

In 1804 the Rupture Society was founded at no. 27 (Burdett’s Hospitals and Charities, 1900)

No. 6 was the home of assistant judge John Adams and his wife Jane (née Martin); their son Henry Cadwallader Adams, author and Church of England clergyman, was born there in 1817 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

In the 1820s no. 17 was the home and practice of solicitor Robert Maugham, later first Secretary of the Law Society, and grandfather of the author W. Somerset Maugham (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 26 was the family home of author George Meredith, who lived here with his father Augustus in the 1840s

No. 1 was the home of solicitor Edward Mullins and his wife Elizabeth (née Baker); their son Edwin Roscoe Mullins, the sculptor, was born there in 1848 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 13 was the practice of surveyor Alfred Bailey and architect William Wood Deane from about 1852 to 1855 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The children’s author William Russell Macdonald died here in 1854 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

By 1855 no. 26 had become the home of engraver James Cooper, whose work was later much admired by Ruskin (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

No. 15 was the home of Theodore Watts-Dunton, poet and solicitor, from 1872 to 1873

No. 3 was the home of poet Algernon Charles Swinburne in the 1870s

No. 5 was said to have been the home of E. V. Lucas, editor of Punch, in the 1890s

Many original buildings still remained and were listed, though some were considerably rebuilt