Bayswater is also one of London's most cosmopolitan areas: a diverse local population is augmented by a high concentration of hotels. In addition to the English, there are many other nationalities. Notable ethnic groups include Greeks, French, Americans, Brazilians, Italians, Irish, Arabs, Malaysians and many others.[citation needed]
Etymology
The name Bayswater is derived from the 1380 placename "Bayards Watering Place", which in Middle English meant either a watering place for horses, or the watering place that belonged to the Bayard family.[2]
History
Historically, Bayswater was located to the west of London on the road from Tyburn towards Uxbridge. It was a hamlet in the seventeenth century close to the Kensington Gravel Pits. By the end of the eighteenth century Bayswater remained a small settlement, although the gradual expansion of London westward into Mayfair and Paddington brought it closer to the outskirts of the city. During the Regency era new suburbs were rapidly constructed to cope with the growing population of the city. An important early developer in Bayswater was Edward Orme who constructed Moscow Road and St. Petersburgh Place, which he named in honour of Alexander I of Russia. Both Bayswater and Tyburnia to the east developed independently of each other. Gradually over the following decades the remaining open spaces were built on and it became an urban area of affluent residential streets and garden squares.[3]
Guglielmo Marconi, the pioneer of wireless communication, lived at 71 Hereford Road between 1896 and 1897 with his mother upon arrival in England (marked by a blue plaque).
Irfan Orga, exile and writer, lived at 29, 35 and 21 Inverness Terrace from 1942 until the mid-fifties, publishing his memoirs Portrait of a Turkish Family in 1950.
Sting occupied a basement flat at 28A Leinster Square in the late seventies during the formative years of The Police. Trudie Styler, now his wife, lived in a basement flat two doors down.[7]
The Bayswater area elects a total of six councillors to Westminster City Council: three from the eponymous Bayswater ward,[10] and three from Lancaster Gate ward.[11]
In Martin Amis's Success, the two main characters live together in a flat in Bayswater, which he calls 'the district of transients.'
In Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Bracknell indicates that the perambulator (carrying Jack, as a baby) was found "standing by itself in a remote corner of Bayswater".
In Saki's short story "Cross Currents" (1909), Vanessa Pennington lives on a "Bayswater back street" but would have preferred "smarter surroundings."
