Place Name
Laid out over land that had originally been called Rose Field in the 16thCentury, it was built sometime before 1682 on the gardens of houses on the north side of Parker’s Lane. It was originally called St Thomas’s Street but in 1765 the name was changed to King Street, probably out of compliment to Joseph King, who took a lease of a large portion of the property in the street about that date. On May 23, 1877, The Times reported that The Metropolitan Board of Works had resolved that King Street, Drury Lane, should be renamed Shelton Street. The new name remembered William Shelton, a wealthy trader, who left money in his will of 1672 to provide an education for five under privileged children, from around St Giles, in the school he had built on nearby Parker Street. Each scholar was to be given a green coat, and in 1679 the churchwardens of St Paul’s were providing each with green breeches as well. The parish seems to have continued to benefit intermittently from the charity until the mid-19thCentury. Today it operates as the St Giles in The Fields and William Shelton Educational Charity.
