Place Name
This was laid out as part of Heathrow Airport’s development. As for the name, you could be forgiven for asking yourself, why is it named after a seaman? And indeed, we asked ourselves the same thing in earlier version of its name origins, concluding: “One possible explanation is that it is next to the Compass Centre offices.” But thanks to some brilliant detective work by fellow street name enthusiast, Jesse Honey, we now think we have a more suitable answer. For Nelson Road is not named after Admiral Horatio Nelson but Air Marshal Sir (Sidney) Richard Carlyle Nelson (November 13, 1907 – November 5, 2001). Sir Richard was a Canadian-born senior Royal Air Force officer who acted as Director-General of the RAF Medical Services from 1962 to 1967 and Honorary Physician to the Queen from 1961 until 1967. After graduating from the University of Alberta he moved to the UK, going the RAF in 1934. When the RAF established a field hospital at Fuka in the Western Desert, he was the senior medical Flight Lieutenant in the Middle East and was appointed to command it. As the post was a Wing Commander’s post, he went straight from Flight Lieutenant to Wing Commander. He remained in this rank until he was promoted to Group Captain in the 1950s. In 1957, he was promoted to Air Commodore. Two years after, in 1959, he was promoted to the acting rank of Air Vice-Marshal. During Nelson’s tenure as Air Vice-Marshal, he was made Honorary Physician to the Queen (QHP) in 1961. His final promotion in 1962 made him an Air-Marshal as Director-General of the RAF medical services, a post which he held until his military retirement in 1967. He died a few years before this road was laid out. As with all roads on the Heathrow Airport footprint it is named after a connection with aviation – with the first letter of each name corresponding to the compass direction. In this case N, with Newbury Road, Newport Road, Newton Road, Northolt Road, Nene Road, Nettleton Road, Newall Road, and Northwood Road.
