Place name
Built in about 1678 and named after wealthy builder Richard Frith (died 1695) who, along with William Pym, leased the land for building from brewer Joseph Girle of St Marylebone. Gillian Bebbington in London Street Names, says: “Frith’s initial success in erecting a few houses in the St James’s district in the early 1670s encouraged him to embark on the much more ambitious scheme of developing the 19-acre Soho Field in 1677. But a few months after he had laid out Frith Street, Soho Square and the surrounding streets, financial difficulties arose from the heavy loans he had to make in order to buy the building materials. By 1683 Frith was ruined and the following year, just as the houses were ready to yield a profit, he was forced to relinquish all his rights in Soho Field. He died, still in debt, in 1695”. When it was first laid out, the street was simply known as a new street, however Ogilby and Morgan’s map of 1681-2 shows it as fully built and already named Frith Street (though this was a mistake because not all the plots had actually been developed by then). About 60 years later, on John Rocque’s map of London published in 1746, it is erroneously called Thrift Street, but by the early 19thCentury it was appearing on maps again as Frith Street.
