Place Name
Like neighbouring Park Road, this takes its name from the nearby Alexandra Park and Palace, which was never a royal household. Initially to be called The Palace of the People or the People’s Palace it was renamed after Queen Alexandra of Denmark (December 1, 1844 – November 20, 1925), who at the time was Princess of Wales having married the future King Edward VII in 1863. Born Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia she was known for her many charitable works and was a very popular figure among the British public. Her obituary in The Times touched on this: “All her life Queen Alexandra took, a keen interest in applied science, an especially in science applied to the alleviation of human suffering. This was the basis of her work for hospitals. She was always ready to make the success of opening ceremonies, bazaars and so on, but what she, most enjoyed were intimate, private visits, almost unheralded, to the wards, where she would make a point of seeing every patient and delighting them with her sympathetic words and gestures. It was almost impossible to conduct her round a hospital in the prescribed time.” During the Boer War she was credited with organising the first wave of nurses to South Africa. Indeed, her ability to turn on the common touch when with the public made her a favourite with the crowds. The Times said: “There used to be a song current among her entourage about a humble woman in the crowd, who in describing her experience declared: ‘I saw the Queen and the Queen saw me!'” On Saturday May 24, 1873 the Alexandra Palace threw open its doors without a grand opening ceremony or speeches but with a full bill of entertainments attempting to lure the public away from the West End. The Times reported that it was a success attracting as many people as the “Palace and Park could comfortably hold”. The reporter noting however, that this new attraction would have a tough job to convince people to make the effort to reach this “awkward situation” adding: “The Alexandra Palace programme will have to be very attractive to persuade fashionable London to turn its horses’ heads to the north, contrary to the law which governs the social ecliptic.” Within two weeks it had attracted 120,000 visitors. But even before its longer term success or otherwise could be determined, disaster struck. On June 9, a fire broke out at midday. Before it could be put out it had taken hold and gutted the entire building which “was destroyed by fire, with most of the valuable property it contained, including many rare works of art, and nothing now remains of it but four bare, blackened, roofless walls, presenting a melancholy spectacle.” At least two people were killed in the conflagration which had been caused by coals from a workman’s brazier. Within a day the directors of the company, buoyed by the success for the first two weeks, announced they would rebuild the palace. It was rebuilt within two years but failed as a entertainment venture. It later became the centre of BBC Television transmissions and was better known by its nickname Ally Pally, said to have been coined by the singer Gracie Fields.
