Old signage like this is a reminder of how swiftly cities change. Actually if they don’t adapt they become fossilised tourist attractions or worse.
But I digress. No. 9 Wardour Street in 1798 was where Benjamin Smart’s gold and silver bullion business was based. The area had only been developed as recently as the Fire of London and this stretch was called Prince Street (after Prince Rupert) in 1798, not changing name to Wardour Street until the late 19th century. It really flourished in the 19th century when there were furniture makers (Thomas Sheraton lived here), tailors, jewellers, French chefs and other foreigners including Russian, Italian and Swiss immigrants. It must have been an agreeable cosmopolitan place.
It has only become Chinatown since the 1950s. The Chinese community had been based around Limehouse. You will remember Sherlock Holmes visiting opium dens there and mysterious Chinese seamen. But bombing in the war and then the attentions of developers drove the Chinese west to Soho, which was pretty scruffy and affordable then. It only received official recognition as Chinatown in 1985.