Early history and origin of name

Greenwood's 1827 map showing parts of Pimlico and Millbank prior to development

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Manor of Ebury was divided up and leased by the Crown to servants or favourites. In 1623, James I sold the freehold of Ebury for £1,151 and 15 shillings.^{[lower-alpha 1]} The land was sold on several more times, until it came into the hands of heiress Mary Davies in 1666.

Mary's dowry not only included "The Five Fields" of modern-day Pimlico and Belgravia, but also most of what is now Mayfair and Knightsbridge. Understandably, she was much pursued but in 1677, at the age of twelve, married Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet. The Grosvenors were a family of Norman descent long seated at Eaton Hall in Cheshire who, until this auspicious marriage, were of but local consequence in their native county of Cheshire. Through the development and good management of this land the Grosvenors acquired enormous wealth.

At some point in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, the area ceased to be known as Ebury or "The Five Fields" and gained the name by which it is now known. While its origins are disputed, it is "clearly of foreign derivation.... Gifford, in a note in his edition of Ben Jonson, tells us that 'Pimlico is sometimes spoken of as a person, and may not improbably have been the master of a house once famous for ale of a particular description."^[2] Supporting this etymology, Rev. Brewer describes the area as "a district of public gardens much frequented on holidays. According to tradition, it received its name from Ben Pimlico, famous for his nut-brown ale. His tea-gardens, however, were near Hoxton, and the road to them was termed Pimlico Path, so that what is now called Pimlico was so named from the popularity of the Hoxton resort".^[3]

H.G. Wells, in his novel The Dream, says that there was a wharf at Pimlico where ships from America docked and that the word Pimlico came with the trade and was the last word left alive of the Algonquin Indian language (Pamlico).

Development and decline

Belgravia and Pimlico in 1903

By the 19th century, and as a result of an increase in demand for property in the previously unfashionable West End of London following the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London, Pimlico had become ripe for development. In 1825, Thomas Cubitt was contracted by Lord Grosvenor to develop Pimlico. The land up to this time had been marshy but was reclaimed using soil excavated during the construction of St Katharine Docks.^[4]

Cubitt developed Pimlico as a grid of handsome white stucco terraces. The largest and most opulent houses were built along St George's Drive and Belgrave Road, the two principal streets, and Eccleston, Warwick and St George's Squares. Lupus Street contained similarly grand houses, as well as shops and, until the early twentieth century, a hospital for women and children. Smaller-scale properties, typically of three storeys, line the side streets.

An 1877 newspaper article described Pimlico as "genteel, sacred to professional men… not rich enough to luxuriate in Belgravia proper, but rich enough to live in private houses." Its inhabitants were "more lively than in Kensington… and yet a cut above Chelsea, which is only commercial."^[5]

Although the area was dominated by the well-to-do middle and upper-middle classes as late as Booth's 1889 Map of London Poverty,^[6] parts of Pimlico are said to have declined significantly by the 1890s. When Rev Gerald Olivier moved to the neighbourhood in 1912 with his family, including the young Laurence Olivier, to minister to the parishioners of St Saviour, it was part of a venture to west London "slums" that had previously taken the family to the depths of Notting Hill.^[7]

Through the late nineteenth century, Pimlico saw the construction of several Peabody Estates, charitable housing projects designed to provide affordable, quality homes.

Twentieth century resurgence

Proximity to the Houses of Parliament made Pimlico a centre of political activity. Prior to 1928, the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress shared offices on Eccleston Square, and it was here in 1926 that the general strike was organised.

In the mid-1930s Pimlico saw a second wave of development with the construction of Dolphin Square, a self-contained "city" of 1,250 up-market flats built on the site formerly occupied by Cubitt's building works. Completed in 1937, it quickly became popular with MPs and public servants. It was home to fascist Oswald Mosley until his arrest in 1940, and the headquarters of the Free French for much of the Second World War.

Pimlico survived the war with its essential character intact, although parts sustained significant bomb damage. Through the 1950s these areas were the focus of large-scale redevelopment as the Churchill Gardens and Lillington and Longmoore Gardens estates, and many of the larger Victorian houses were converted to hotels and other uses.

To provide affordable and efficient heating to the residents of the new post-war developments, Pimlico became one of the few places in the UK to have a district heating system installed. District heating became popular after World War II to heat the large residential estates that replaced areas devastated by the Blitz. The Pimlico District Heating Undertaking (PDHU) is just north of the River Thames. The PDHU first became operational in 1950 and continues to expand to this day. The PDHU once relied on waste heat from the now-disused Battersea Power Station on the south side of the River Thames. It is still in operation, the water now being heated locally by a new energy centre which incorporates 3.1 MWe /4.0 MWTh of gas-fired CHP engines and 3 × 8 MW gas-fired boilers.

In 1953, the Second Duke of Westminster sold the part of the Grosvenor estate on which Pimlico is built.^[8]

In 1970, CR Developments sold the Pimlico Estate, covering 27 acres in Victoria, including 480 homes, to a consortium controlled by the Hanson Trust.^[9]

Pimlico was connected to the London Underground in 1972 as a late addition to the Victoria line. Following the designation of a conservation area in 1968 (extended in 1973 and again in 1990), the area has seen extensive regeneration. Successive waves of development have given Pimlico an interesting social mix, combining exclusive restaurants and residences with Westminster City Council-run facilities.

For a history of street name etymologies in the area see: Street names of Pimlico and Victoria

Blue plaques

• Aubrey Beardsley, illustrator – lived at 114 Cambridge Street
• Sir Winston Churchill, politician – lived at 33 Eccleston Square and Morpeth Terrace
• Joseph Conrad, Polish-born British novelist – lived at 17 Gillingham Street
• Sir Michael Costa, conductor and orchestra reformer – lived at 59 Eccleston Square
• William Morris 'Billy' Hughes, 7th Prime Minister of Australia – born at 7 Moreton Place
• Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya – lived at 95 Cambridge Street^[13]
• Douglas Macmillan, founder of Cancer Relief – lived at 15 Ranelagh Road^[14]
• Swami Vivekananda, Hindu philosopher – lived briefly at 63 St George's Drive
• Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, father of lawn tennis – lived at 33 St George's Square

Others

Statue of Thomas Cubitt by William Fawke in Denbigh Street

• Nickie Aiken, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Cities of London and Westminster^[15]
• Laura Ashley, designer – 83 Cambridge Street
• Wilfrid Brambell, actor, star of Steptoe and Son – Denbigh Street^[16]
• James Crump, founder of St Aubyn's School, Woodford Green – 86 Cambridge Street
• Anthony Davis, comedian and broadcaster
• Charles De Gaulle, Free French leader and French president – Dolphin Square
• Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, First man to fly over Mount Everest – born 71 Eccleston Square
• Isadora Duncan, American dancer – 33 Warwick Square^[17]
• Bertha Jane Grundy, novelist, died in Eccleston Square on 5 September 1912.
• Steve Hackett, former Genesis guitarist
• William Hague, former British Foreign Secretary
• Basil Harwood, organist and composer
• Michael Howard, former Conservative Party leader
• Arthur Foord Hughes, artist^[18]
• Jeremy Hunt, politician
• Rhys Ifans, Welsh actor
• Luke Irvine-Capel, Archdeacon of Chichester, lived at 30 Warwick Square during his tenure as Vicar of St Gabriel's, Warwick Square (2008–2013).
• Catherine Johnson, creator of the musical Mamma Mia!
• James Lennox Kerr, Scottish socialist author
• Gavin MacFadyen (1940–2016), the director of WikiLeaks and founder of the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ)
• Oswald Mosley, British Union of Fascists leader – Dolphin Square
• Ian Nairn, architectural critic – 14 Warwick Square
• Bill Nighy, actor
• Laurence Olivier, actor – 22 Lupus Street
• Barbara Pym, writer – 108 Cambridge Street
• Sheila Scott, aviator
• Pamela Colman Smith, nicknamed Pixie, artist, illustrator, and writer
• Bram Stoker, author of Dracula – died at 26 St George's Square^[19]
• Gianluca Vialli, Italian football striker and manager
• Lucy Bethia Walford, Scottish-born novelist, died on 11 May 1915 – 17 Warwick Square.^[20]
• Herbert William Weekes, genre and animal painter – born in Pimlico ca. 1842
• Henry Weekes, RA, Victorian era sculptor – worked at No. 2, lived at No. 96, Eccleston Street^[21]
• Paul Weller, singer/songwriter, lived in a flat in Pimlico in the early 1980s
• Small Faces, 1960s band – 22 Westmoreland Terrace