Gee Street, EC1V

Place name

Named after Osgood Gee (1744 – 1823) who laid out the road along a former rope walk in 1784 that was owned by his family. His grandfather was a master of the Grocers’ Company and hence a freeman of the City of London. By 1700 he was making his own fortune trading with the American colonies and building up a flourishing mercantile business. Gee’s perhaps more infamous descendent was John Gee, a convert from the Jesuits, who in 1624 published his anti-Roman Catholic book The Foot out of the Snare, which listed 263 priests then dwelling or lodging in London, of whom 70 were Jesuits.

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