Place name
Until 1938 this was Clarence Street, having been named sometime between 1848 and 1853. James Burgh (1714 – August 26, 1775) was one of the country’s foremost early political thinkers, whose Political Disquisitions, published in 1774, set out an early case for free speech and universal suffrage: in it, he writes: “All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people.” He has been judged “one of England’s foremost propagandists for radical reform”. John Nelson writing in The History, Topography and Antiquities of the Parish of St Mary Islington described him as “an esteemed moral and political writer, kept an academy at Newington Green for 19 years, where he died in 1775. Of many excellent works that he left behind him ‘Political Disquistions’ 3 volumes and ‘Youth’s Friendly Menitor’ are the best known and most esteemed.” Historian Caroline Robbins called Burgh’s book: “The most important political treatise to appear in English in the first half of the reign of George III.”
