Place Name
Named after the South African port town, which was founded in 1824 by Francis Farewell and other British merchants in the then Natal province. It was from this base that the British began colonising the whole of the region, which went on to form South Africa. The port was named after Lieutenant General Sir Benjamin Alfred D’Urban (1777 – 25 May 1849), best known for his frontier policy (a de facto invasion, which led to a series of wars against the native peoples) when he was the governor in the Cape Colony. The street was laid out in the early 20thCentury during a period of development in the area. In medieval times this formed part of Barking Abbey’s demesne, land which was owned and leased out mostly to tenant farmers by the abbey. The land was snatched by the Crown during the dissolution of monasteries in 1546 and granted to Sir Richard Gresham who subsequently sold it to a Bartholomew Barnes who built up several large estates in the area. In the late 19thCentury the land was sold to builders for development and this street was laid out after 1898 along the course of a former land division. This is one of a number of local streets that commemorates the Boer Wars.
