When the Victorians and Edwardians needed something to name their streets after, they often turned to battles. In particular to big tubthumping Empire-building campaigns, which usually meant a) The Crimean War or b) The Boer War.
I've tracked down a local Boer cluster where Canning Town merges into Plaistow, not so very far from West Ham station. Most of the other residential streets around here appeared in the 1890s. But this loop off Hermit Road was delayed until the first years of the 20th century, which meant the Boer War had just finished, which meant these four got the full on victorious treatment.
Mafeking Road:Mafeking was the first Cape Colony town to be besieged by the Boers, and also the last to be relieved. Its commander was Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, whose staunch defence much endeared him to the British public back home (but whose treatment of the indigenous population would endear him to nobody today). Mafeking Road is the most central of the four, a quiet street with a short row of original terraces on one side and replacements elsewhere. Sight you might see: Topless man giving his car a loving Sunday morning clean.
Kimberley Road:Kimberley was besieged two days later, the Boers' aim to take control of the local diamond mines. A civilian population of 50,000 held out for four months on dwindling rations while various British generals made a painfully slow advance on the town. Kimberley Road is the shortest of the four streets and the most significantly rebuilt, either through bomb damage or because someone thought the church would be more useful as a chapel-cum-care-home. Sight you might see: Silvery Happy Birthday banner hung across front of house.
Ladysmith Road:Ladysmith was the third big siege of October 1899, trapping mostly British troops fresh from victories elsewhere. Battles around the town swung both ways, and limited provisions forced the slaughter of army horses for food. Ladysmith Road is mostly intact on one side and mostly modern semis on the other, with a barely visible street sign stuck to a lingering terrace at the far end. Sight you might see: Elderly gentleman emerging with shopping bags, looking suspiciously at strange man taking photos.
Pretoria Road: Pretoria was the capital of the South African Republic, hence a prime target for the British Army, and eventually occupied in May 1900. Pretoria Road best resembles the original Edwardian terraced street, though with an extra entrance to a local secondary school shoehorned in at one end. Halfway down is a splendid old gateway into a Goods and Coal Depot, long since vanished under two annoyingly-disjoint estates. Sight you might see: Sign in window saying A Cocker Spaniel Lives Here.
The Boer names stop as soon as you step past the green by the academy, where you suddenly enter a world of Geralds, Hildas and small Suffolk villages instead. These residents don't live in streets named after colonial triumphs based on dubious practices, but most of history is dubious if you dig deep enough so there's been no need for a rebranding.
Researching further, it seems there aren't as many Boer clusters in Greater London as I first thought. I only found five.
i) Upper Edmonton: Flanking Meridian Water are Kimberley Road and (the rather shorter) Ladysmith Road. ii) Enfield: North of Southbury Road run Mafeking Road, Kimberley Gardens and (the considerably longer) Ladysmith Road. iii) East Ham: Sequentially off Barking Road are Mafeking Avenue, Kimberley Avenue and Ladysmith Avenue - the three sieges. iv) Tottenham: Not far from Bruce Grove station are Mafeking Road, Kimberley Road and Ladysmith Road but also Buller Road and Carew Road, making five. v) Seven Kings: Close to the Hainault Loop are Mafeking Avenue, Kimberley Avenue and Ladysmith Avenue but also Glencoe Avenue, Colenso Road and Durban Road, making six.
As for the Crimean War, I've found even fewer of those. Just three.
i) Bermondsey: North of the Old Kent Road are Balaclava Road and Alma Grove. I'm unconvinced Fort Road can be added to make three. ii) Kentish Town: On the path of the submerged River Fleet are Alma Street, Cathcart Street, Inkerman Road, Raglan Street and Willes Road. iii) Honor Oak: East Dulwich's "Crimea Corner" includes Scutari Road, Marmora Road, Therapia Road and Mundania Road.
So when I suggested the Victorians and Edwardians often named their streets after tubthumping battles, I was incorrect. They went for flowers and cathedral cities and castles and mayors and painters and poets and all sorts of things, only a tiny number of which were triumphant Empire campaigns. At least later Londoners didn't follow their lead and name streets after Second World War battles or Falkland skirmishes, indeed these days we're more likely to commemorate lowly soldiers than honour moustachioed generals. The London A-Z is less of a history book than we might think.
