Albemarle Street - Occupants

Occupants

Victor Spencer, 1st Viscount Churchill (1864–1934), a Page of Honour to Queen Victoria and British peer, was born at 32 Albemarle Street.

Anne Lister (1791–1840), a notable Victorian lesbian, stayed at 29 Albemarle Street in rooms owned by Hawkins, who also had premises in Dover Street.

The Albemarle Club was originally in Albemarle Street and relocated to Dover Street nearby before its closure. Oscar Wilde was a member. In 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry left his calling card for Wilde with the infamous note "For Oscar Wilde, posing as a somdomite" (sic). This led to Wilde's failed libel action and subsequent criminal prosecution.

The publisher John Murray was located at 50 Albemarle Street in Victorian times and during the 20th century. Lord Byron's letters were destroyed in the fireplace on the first floor after his death. Sir John Betjeman, the poet and broadcaster was another Murray author.

Frenchman Alexander Grillion opened Grillion's Hotel at No. 7 in 1803. Louis XVIII stayed here in 1814, before his return to France. It was also the meeting place of Grillion's dining club. The Royal Thames Yacht Club was later based here.

The Royal Institution is located at 21 Albemarle Street and forms an imposing backdrop on the street with its row of classical columns on its frontage. The building has been greatly enlarged and redeveloped since 1799 when the Institution was founded, and is now a Grade I listed building. Because of the Institution's popularity (through its scientific lectures), Albemarle Street became London's first one-way street to avoid traffic problems.

The naturalist Thomas Huxley founded the X Club as a dining club meeting for the first time on 3 November 1864 at St George's Hotel, Albemarle Street, with a select membership of nine proponents of the evolutionary "new reformation" in naturalism who supported the ideas of Charles Darwin and became increasingly influential in late 19th century science.

In the 1950s, Ernö Goldfinger's design for two office buildings at 45–46 Albemarle Street was praised for its sensitivity to the surrounding Georgian architecture.