Toronto’s Kensington Market is one of the older neighbourhoods in the city. After serving for the British in the War of 1812, George Taylor Denison purchased a plot of land that extended from Queen West to Bloor Street, between what are now Augusta and Lippincott Streets. The Denison estate was subdivided in the 1850s, and into the 1880s, houses were built on small plots for Irish and Scottish immigrant labourers coming to the city. With an influx of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the early twentieth century, the area became known as the Jewish Market before taking on the name of one of the neighbourhood’s main streets, Kensington Avenue—which in turn was probably named after London’s Kensington district.

Source: The Culture Trip