Alcester Street/Close

Alcester Street and Alcester Close, just off and parallel to Haddington Road, would appear to take their name from the English naval commander Frederick Beauchamp Paget Seymour (1821-95) who entered the navy in 1834 and who, by the time these streets were laid out in the second half of the nineteenth century had become a distinguished naval figure.

Popularly known as “The Swell of the Ocean”, Seymour commanded the floating battery Meteor in Crimean War and he commanded the naval brigade in New Zealand during the Maori War.

As Admiral Seymour he was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean between 1880 and 1883 and as such bombarded Alexandria in 1882. Educated at Eton, when elevated to the peerage he became the 1st Baron Alcester.