How the Cadogan family made modern Chelsea: the Victorian Era

In the early Georgian Era, the author Daniel Defoe wrote an account of travelling around Great Britain. He described ‘Chelsey’ as a ‘town of palaces’, due to the grand houses that lined the Thames. However, from 1770 onwards, several of these manors and their gardens were replaced by streets of Georgian terraces. These streets were known as ‘Hans Town’ and were built on land owned by the Cadogan family.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the family grew increasingly prominent. George Cadogan was a naval admiral who fought in the Napoleonic Wars and was made a Companion of the Order of Bath. In 1832, he inherited the family’s titles from his half-brother, becoming the third Earl Cadogan. Meanwhile, his son Henry Cadogan had a successful diplomatic career, with postings in St Petersburg and Paris. He also married the Duke of Wellington’s niece and inherited the earldom at the age of 52.

But it was the fifth earl who did most to transform the neighbourhood. Likewise called George Cadogan, he served in governments under Disraeli and Salisbury, becoming Lord Privy Seal and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The fifth earl was also elected the first mayor of Chelsea in 1900 and lived in Chelsea House, a grand property on the northern side of Cadogan Place. And he led the redevelopment of the neighbourhood between 1877 and 1900.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the population of Chelsea grew quickly. This process began in 1830, when the King’s Road – once a royal road linking central London to the palaces at Kew and Hampton Court – became a public highway. Then, in 1868, Sloane Square station opened, connecting the neighbourhood to Westminster. Finally, in 1874, the Chelsea Embankment was completed, creating a wide road for carriages and pedestrians running along the river.

At the same time, Chelsea was growing fashionable, attracting numerous artists and writers. The picturesque terraces close to the river were home to the painter J.M.W. Turner and the Pre-Raphaelite artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. Meanwhile, the studios on nearby Tite Street were occupied by James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent and Augustus John. Furthermore, the historian Thomas Carlyle and the novelists George Eliot, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde all became residents of the neighbourhood.

However, the stock of Georgian housing could not the rising demand. Many properties were unfit for modern living and so the fifth Earl Cadogan had them rebuilt in red brick. The grandest of these copied the decorative brickwork and stepped gables of Flemish architecture – described as “Pont Street Dutch” by the architectural critic Osbert Lancaster. Elsewhere the terraces mixed Gothic, Italianate and Queen Anne Revival style, with ornate facades and intricate detailing. Towards the end of the century, architects added Arts and Crafts cottages or rows of workers’ houses, and this blend of styles and materials helped to create the village-like charm that Chelsea maintains to this day.

Because Chelsea was expanding rapidly, Cadogan also developed new buildings for the community. These included Chelsea Hospital for Women (now part of the Royal Brompton Hospital) and the Chelsea Town Hall. Perhaps the most impressive was Holy Trinity Church, which was rebuilt on an ambitious scale, with many leading sculptors, designers and artists commissioned to contribute to the windows and furnishings. Cadogan funded the entire project himself, and the result – according to the poet John Betjeman – was a ‘Cathedral to the Arts and Crafts movement.’

These changes turned Chelsea into one of London’s most fashionable neighbourhoods. Though less aristocratic than nearby Mayfair and Knightsbridge, its bohemian reputation attracted artists, intellectuals, professionals and members of the leisure classes. However, in the twentieth century, this reputation would change once more, with the Cadogan family again at the heart of the transformation.