PLACE NAME
Renamed in 1909 after the novelist Fanny Burney, also known as Madame d’Arblay (June 13, 1752 – January 6, 1840) who spent 10 years of her childhood in nearby Poland Street. Between 1786 – 1790 she held the post of Keeper of the Robes to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, George III’s wife, having been introduced to the Royal family by a Mrs Delany, a favourite of the Court. As the name implies, she had responsibility for the queen’s clothes and jewellery. In 1793, aged 41, she married a French exile, General Alexandre D’Arblay. After a long writing career and wartime travels that stranded her in France for over a decade, she settled in Bath, where she died. The first of her four novels, Evelina, published in 1778, was her most successful and remains the best regarded. Before its development this area had been a field called Doghouse Close. It was part of the Hospital of Burton St Lazar before being surrendered to Henry VIII in 1536. In 1629 Charles I gave it to his wife Queen Henrietta Maria who, as Dan Cruickshank in Soho explains, in 1661 leased it to royal favourite, the Earl of St Albans. He in turn sublet it to property speculator Joseph Girle, who let land to the developer James Pollett. Through all these manoeuvrings the land remained Crown freehold, so in 1698 William III was able to grant it to his favourite, the Earl of Portland, who built this street in 1735, hence at first it was called Portland Street. Its first houses were occupied by 1737.
