This street name comes from the name of the family home of the publishers/printers Marcus Ward and Company, Bankmore House. The business premises was called The Bankmore Royal Ulster Works. The Directory of Belfast and Province of Ulster (1865-1866) contains a reference to Bankmore House (Off Dublin Road) and this inscription: “Convent of Mercy, Mrs Morrin, superioress). Sources of information: BPU and Paul Tempan.
However, the Wards were not the first owners of this house. In 1862 Bankmore House belonged to the McCleery family. They owned another house of the same name located in North Street, which existed as early as 1815. James McCleery was a civil engineer. His son William McCleery was associated with the house on Dublin Road. The family was originally from Portaferry, Co. Down. The name Bankmore probably comes from Bankmore Hill, which overlooks the narrow entrance to Strangford Lough, a few miles south of Portaferry.
We are also grateful to Allie Nickell for providing additional details.
"Bankmore Street named from Bankmore House, which stood at the rear of Marcus Ward's Royal Ulster Works, now the Linen Warehouse of John S. Brown & Sons, Dublin Road. It was formerly known as "the Basin Loney" from a small circular reservoir in connection with the water supply service situated near the site of the present Ormeau Avenue Baths. The culverted (1881-82) Blackstaff River runs under the adjacent Ormeau Avenue, so it was a happy thought to name the new Street Bankmore (great bank) Street". “Ballymacarrett once inspired a poet” by John J Marshall in Belfast Telegraph - Tuesday 31 December 1940. [Note that the McCleerys' connection with Portaferry researched by Hugh Hamilton and Allie Nickell provides an explanation preferable to that offered by Marshall.]
As well as Basin Loney, as mentioned by Marshall, the street had other earlier names. It was called Paper Mill Lane in 1837 and Bismarck Street in 1879. It existed as early as 1791. It was shown but unnamed on Williamson's map of that year (IHTA xii, 11; IHTA xvii, 10).