King's Cross is a district in the area of St. Pancras, London. Its name comes from the monument to George IV which stood from 1830 to 1845 at "the king's crossroads," where New Road (now Euston Road), Gray's Inn Road (link) and Pentonville Road (link) meet. King's Cross station was erected on the site in 1852, and replaced a temporary station that had been erected nearby for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The area was traditionally believed to be the site of the legendary battle between Queen Boudicca, the Iceni warrior queen, and the Roman invaders. The battle reportedly took place at Broad Ford Bridge, a crossing of the River Fleet, which became colloquially called "Battle Bridge." Urban folklore claims that Queen Boudicca is buried beneath platform nine or ten at King's Cross Station. It was a rural area until the 18th century when it began to be developed and grew in industrial production with the arrival of gasworks and other manufacturing businesses, as well as the Regent's Canal, completed in 1820, which linked King's Cross to northern industrial cities. In 1830, a monument holding a statue of King George IV was erected at the Battle Bridge crossroads and the new name of King's Cross stuck, though the monument was ridiculed and eventually removed in 1845. Between 1849 and 1852, the Great Northern Railway established their London terminus in King's Cross which led to increased industrial expansion and residential developments.
In London Labour and the London Poor edition:
Phase 1
The Negro Crossing-Sweeper, who had lost both his Legs. (Volume 2): "I am a Protestant. I don’t know the name of the church, but I goes down to a new-built church, near King’s-cross. I never go in, because of my legs; but I just go inside the door; and sometimes when I don’t go, I read the Testament I’ve got here: in all my sickness I took care of that."
Phase 2
Of the Cheap Johns, or Street Hansellers. (Volume 1)
The Rat-Killer. (Volume 3)