Place Name
David A Hayes of the Camden History Society in his study of Camden Street Names and their origins says that The East End Dwellings Company, which developed the Hillview Estate in 1891, were mortgagees of land at Tankerton-on-Sea, near Whitstable, Kent. The company had been founded seven years earlier by the clergyman and social reformer Samuel Barnett to provide housing for the poor. Four parallel streets intersected the dwellings, namely modern Whidborne Street, Tankerton Street, Midhope Street, and Loxham Street. Gillian Bebbington in London Street Names has suggested they were all named after company directors. Either way, the street was originally called Dutton Street when it was first built in the 1810s, which Hayes says was probably after its builder or an unknown developer. Before its development from around 1801 the area had been fields belonging to tin-plate worker, Joseph Lucas, who owned a seven-acre site between Gray’s Inn Road and the ancient Boot pub, which still exists, on the corner of Cromer Street and Judd Street. By the time Barnett purchased it less than a hundred years later it had become slum. The street was so-called in 1919.
