Albany Road was started in mid-January 1898 and should, by the terms of the contract, have been completed by 10 July. In fact it was only completed on 16 September 1898. Officially opened a few months later on 1 December 1898, it was named after the Duchess of Albany following her visit to St Thomas's Church in November 1898.
Its construction was in order to pump new life into Earlsdon, which had suffered from its earliest days from poor communication with Coventry. There were no direct roads and the shortest route was via a footpath (Earlsdon Jetty) that was the basis for Albany Road. The City Council had started to organise a road to Earlsdon in 1890 but was delayed through problems negotiating with local landowners.
The new road made the creation of a tram service possible. This started in March 1905, which further increased the interest in Earlsdon as a suburb. Developers needed no encouragement to feed a building boom in the area during the years leading up to the First World War.
