Named for the Duke of Devonshire – or, rather, for the many Dukes of Devonshire who have lived in Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England since the 16th century. (Devonshire and Derbyshire are some 200 miles apart, but English peerage titles are rarely geography-based.) The chief developer of our Chatsworth, British expat William B. Barber, grew up near Chatsworth House and so it was undoubtedly he who brought the name to the San Fernando Valley in 1888. (See Chatsworth Street for more.) Rumors persist that William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire (1808-1891), was a friend of Barber’s and/or visited Los Angeles in the 1880s, but there’s no proof of the former and no truth to the latter. Nevertheless, the Cavendish family crest with its three deer heads was used for Chatsworth signage and letterhead in the town’s early days.
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