It appears that Northbrook Street was the product of a general process of redevelopment on the civilian side of the Dockyard Wall in the latter part of the nineteenth century, not long after the death of Sir Francis Thornhill Baring (1796-1866) – 1st Baron Northbrook.
A former First Lord of the Admiralty, Baring was a member the family that established that great financial and commercial house Baring Brothers & Co, but he was more interested in politics and served as joint secretary of the treasury before enjoying office as chancellor of the exchequer.
His son, Thomas George Baring, succeeded to the Northbrook baronetcy on his father’s death in 1866. That same year he served briefly as First Secretary of the Admiralty before being appointed Under Secretary for War in 1868. He became Viceroy and Governor General of India when that appointment ended and in 1876 he was created 1st Earl of Northbrook and Viscount Baring. From 1880 to 1885 he served in Gladstone’s administration as First Lord of the Admiralty. He died in 1904. Northbrook Street, a short thoroughfare between the similarly long-gone Edinburgh Road and Catherine Street, swallowed up by the Dockyard in the 1950s, and is itself now part of past history.
