Connaught Avenue

Before Connaught Avenue there was Connaught Terrace, the original name given to that stretch of Mutley Plain that runs fom what became Connaught Avenue to Belgrave Road.

Laid out in the late 1870s the name comes from the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, the title given to Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, seventh child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He was born on 1 May 1850, on the same day the Duke of Wellington, from whom he got the name Arthur, celebrated his 81st birthday. The name William came from the Prince of Prussia, while Albert was after his father. Patrick, on the other hand, was in remembrance of the visit to ireland in 1849, the year that Prince Arthur was conceived. As Arthur appears to have been very much a favourite of the Queen's one wonders also if that Irish connection had some bearing on the first half of the Prince's Dukedom.

EH 13 August 1994