Place name
James Elphinstone, also spelt Elphinston (December 6, 1721 – 1809), was uncle to the Reverend George Strahan, vicar of Islington between 1773 and 1824, and who lived in Islington sometime around 1788. He was the son of William Elphinston, an Episcopalian minister, and his wife, Rachel Honeyman, niece of the bishop of Orkney. He was an educationist and advocate of spelling reform who kept a boarding school in Kensington, described by Alexander Carlyle as “a Jacobite seminary”. He was also a friend of Samuel Johnson helping him to circulate his magazine The Rambler in the Edinburgh area. Dr Johnson said of him: “The outer part is awkward but the inner part is mighty good.” The road was laid out between 1881 and 1882.
