FINSBURY  , a central

metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded N. by Islington, E. by Shoreditch, S. by the city of London and W. by Holborn and St Pancras . Pop . (1901) 101,463 . The principal thoroughfares are Pentonville Road, from King's Cross east to the Angel, Islington, continuing E. and S. in City Road and S. again to the City in Moorgate Street; Clerkenwell Road and Old Street, crossing the centre from W. to E., King's Cross Road running S.E. into Farringdon Road, and so to the City; St John Street and Road and Goswell Road (the residence of Dickens' Pickwick) running S. from the Angel towards the City; and Rosebery Avenue running S.W. from St John Street into Holborn . The commercial character of the City extends into the southern part of the borough; the residential houses are mostly those of artisans . Local industries include working in precious metals, watch-making, printing and paper-making . An early form of the name is Vynesbury, but the derivation is not known . The place was supposed by some to take name from an extensive fen, a part of which, commonly known as Moorfields (cf . Moorgate Street), was drained in the 16th century and subsequently laid out as public grounds . It was a frequent resort of Pepys, who mentions its houses of entertainment and the wrestling and other pastimes carried on, also that it furnished a refuge for many of those whose houses were destroyed in the fire of London in 1666 . Bookstalls and other booths were numerous at a somewhat later date . The borough includes the parish of Clerkenwell (q.v.), a locality of considerable historic interest, including the former priory of St John, Clerkenwell, of which the gateway and other traces remain .

Among several other sites and buildings of

historical interest the Charterhouse (q.v.) west of Aldersgate Street, stands first, originally a Carthusian monastery, subsequently a hospital and a school out of which grew the famous public school at Godalming . Bunhill Fields, City Road, was used by the Dissenters as a burial-place from the middle of the 17th century until 1832 . Among eminent persons interred here are John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, Susanna, mother of John and Charles Wesley, and George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends . A neighbouring chapel is intimately associated with the Wesleys, and the house of John Wesley is opened as a museum bearing his name . Many victims of the plague were buried in a pit neighbouring to these fields, near the junction of Goswell Road and Old Street . To the south of the fields lies the Artillery Ground, the training ground of the Honourable Artillery Company, so occupied since 1641, with barracks and armoury . Sadler's Wells theatre, Rosebery Avenue, dating as a place of entertainment from 1683, preserves the name of a fashionable medicinal spring, music room and theatre, the lastmost notable in its connexion with the names of Joseph Grimaldi the clown and Samuel Phelps . Other institutions are the tech. nical college, Leonard Street, and St Mark's, St Luke's and the Royal chest hospitals . At Mount Pleasant is the parcels department of the general post office, and at Clerkenwell Green the sessions house for the county of London (north side of the Thames) . Adjacent to Rosebery Avenue are reservoirs of the New River Head . The municipal borough coincides with the east and central divisions of the parliamentary borough of Finsbury, each returning one member . The borough council consists of a mayor, 9 aldermen and 54 councillors .

Area, 589.1 acres .