PLACE NAME
Developer James Burton (July 29, 1761 – March 31, 1837) built this respectable street aimed at the prosperous middle-class during a period of rapid residential development in the early 19thCentury. He himself may have lived on the adjoining Burton Place (then, Crescent Place). Prior to its development the area was fields belonging to the Skinner’s Company, before that in the 17thCentury, it had been part of the estate of Sir Andrew Judd (hence Judd Street). Burton, who built up much of the West End in the 18thCentury, was one of most successful developers in Regency and Georgian London and is responsible for many of the streets and squares the district of Bloomsbury is famous for today, including Bedford Square, Russell Square, Bloomsbury Square, Tavistock Square, and Cartwright Gardens. Originally a cul-de-sac, the street first appears on a map dated to 1807. Its houses were built between 1809 and 1820. Burton was born on the Strand, as James Haliburton (he shortened his surname to Burton in 1794, following a dispute with his family), the son of William Haliburton, a London property developer of Scottish descent, and Mary Foster. He was educated at a day school in Covent Garden before being privately tutored and receiving architectural training. He had four children, one of whom was the Egyptologist James Haliburton. By the time of his death Burton had built over 3,000 properties. By the 1880s and 1890s, the street was more definitively artisan and working-class.
