Society of Arts

London Explained – English Heritage’s Blue Plaques…

by exploringlondon

Walk the streets of London and chances are you’ll soon come across an English Heritage Blue Plaque commemorating someone famous.

There are now more than 990 Blue Plaques in London, commemorating everyone from diarist Samuel Pepys to writer Virginia Woolf and comedian Tony Hancock.

An English Heritage Blue Plaque commemorating singer and actor Paul Robson. PICTURE: Brett Jordan/Unsplash

The scheme was started in 1866 by the Society of Arts (later the Royal Society of Arts) having been proposed by MP William Ewart three years before. The first two plaques were erected in 1867 – one commemorating poet Lord Byron at his birthplace, 24 Holles Street in Cavendish Square (although this property was later demolished) and the other commemorating Napoleon III in King Street, Westminster (this is now the oldest survivor of the scheme).

Thirty-five years – and 35 plaques – later, the London County Council took over the scheme. It was this body that standardised the plaque’s appearance (early plaques come in various shapes and colours) and while ceramic blue plaques were standard by 1921, the modern simplified Blue Plaque didn’t appear until 1938 when an unnamed student at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, who was paid just four guineas for their troubles, came up with what is now an iconic design.

In 1965, the LCC, having created almost 250 new Blue Plaques, was abolished and its successor, the Greater London Council, took over the scheme, expanding its area of coverage to includes places like Richmond, Redbridge and Croydon. In 1984, the GLC appointed artisan ceramicists Frank and Sue Ashworth of London Plaques to make the Blue Plaques (and they continue to do so).

The GLC placed some 262 Blue Plaques before, in 1986, English Heritage took over management of the scheme. Since then it’s placed more than 360 plaques.

The plaques, which are 495mm (19½ inches) in diameter and 50mm (two inches) thick, are slightly domed in a bid to encourage self-cleaning in the rain.

Anyone can propose a subject for a new plaque – but generally only one plaque is erected per person (although there have been some exceptions to this), only a maximum of two plaques are allowed per building (there are 18 buildings with two), and proposals, if turned down, must wait 10 years before they are reconsidered.

In addition, new Blue Plaques are only erected a minimum of 20 years after the subject’s death, the building on which one is placed must “survive in a form that the commemorated person would have recognised, and be visible from a public highway”, and buildings which may have many different personal associations, such as churches, schools and theatres, are not normally considered.

The Blue Plaques panel meet three times a year to decide on proposals. Among those currently serving on the 12 person body are architectural historian Professor William Whyte, who chairs the panel, award-winning journalist and author Mihir Bose, Emily Gee, regional director for London and the South East at Historic England, and, Susie Thornberry, assistant director at Imperial War Museums.

The plaques don’t confer any legal protection to buildings but English Heritage says they can help preserve them through raising awareness.

Recently unveiled plaques have commemorated pioneering social research organisation Mass-Observation, lawyer Hersch Lauterpacht – who played a key role in prosecuting the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials, and, Dadabhai Naoroji, an Indian Nationalist and the first Indian to win a popular election to Parliament in the UK. Among those being unveiled this year are plaques commemorating anti-racist activist Claudia Jones, suffragette Emily Wilding Davison and Ada Salter, the first female mayor of a London borough.

English Heritage’s Blue Plaques scheme isn’t the only one commemorating people in London. Others include the City of London’s Blue Plaques scheme (there is only one English Heritage Blue Plaque in the City of London – it commemorates Dr Samuel Johnson), Westminster City Council’s Green Plaques and Heritage Foundation plaques which commemorate figures who worked in entertainment.

For more, head to www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

10 notable blue plaques of London – 3. The City of London’s only ‘blue plaque’ (and it’s not even blue)…

by exploringlondon

Samuel-Johnson-plaqueThere is only one official blue plaque in the square miles of the City of London – that which marks the property of lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson in Gough Square (he always did like to stand out from the crowd) – and, like many of the plaques in the scheme, it’s not even blue.

Samuel-Johnson-plaque2The plaque was among the 35 erected in the first 35 years of the scheme – this one in 1876 – and was done so by the Society of Arts which then ran the scheme (later the Royal Society of Arts). In common with most of the first 35 plaques, it is brown in colour.

In 1879, just three years after this plaque was erected, the Society of Arts came to an agreement with the Corporation of the City of London that the corporation – the governing body of the square mile – would commemorate sites of historic significance within its boundaries and the agreement has stood ever since.

The hundreds of “blue plaques” since erected by the City of London Corporation are rectangular in nature and commemorate everything from structures like the long-gone historic gate of Aldgate (88 Aldgate High Street) to homes of the notable such as martyred Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas á Becket (86 Cheapside).

There’s a searchable database of all the City of London plaques which can be found here.

And, of course, Dr Johnson’s house, which he lived in from 1748-59 which compiling his famous A Dictionary of the English Language (the first comprehensive English language dictionary), is now a museum – for details of that, see our earlier post here.

10 notable blue plaques of London – 2. The (now long gone) first Blue Plaque…

by exploringlondon

The concept of a scheme involving placing commemorative plaques on what was once the homes of notable people was first raised by MP William Ewart in 1863 in Parliament.

Byron-plaqueThree years later, in 1866, the idea was adopted by the then Society of Arts (later the Royal Society of Arts) and in 1867 it erected two blue plaques, the first being one commemorating the birthplace of Lord Byron at 24 Holles Street just south of Cavendish Square in Marylebone and the second being that erected to Emperor Napoleon III in King Street (see last week’s post).

But the Byron plaque had the honour of being the first and it remained on the property until it was demolished in 1889 and the plaque, presumably, lost.

It has, however, been replaced several times on subsequent buildings on the site – the latest incarnation, is a “green plaque” erected by Westminster City Council on what is now a John Lewis store and was unveiled on National Poetry Day in 2012 (it replaced a non-standard, rectangular-shaped plaque – pictured above – which was installed after the building was bombed during World War II).

The current plaque describes Lord Byron as “one of the greatest British poets” and quotes him: “Always laugh when you can. It is a cheap medicine.”

Byron is said to have been born at the property on 22nd January, 1788 and was baptised George Gordon Byron at the nearby St Marylebone Parish Church. Interestingly, English Heritage says that recent research has shown there is no clear evidence for which house in Holles Street Lord Byron actually lived in meaning none of the plaques may have actually marked the correct site.

During the first 35 years of the scheme’s existence it erected on some 35 plaques (there are now some 900 in existence, so the pace has quickened since).

Less than half of them now survive but among those that do are plaques to poet John Keats (erected in 1896 on Keats’ House in Hampstead), novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (erected in 1887 on 2 Palace Green in Kensington) and politician and author Edmund Burke (erected in 1876 on 37 Gerrard Street in Soho.

PICTURE:  Wikimedia

10 notable blue plaques of London – 1. The oldest surviving blue plaque…

by exploringlondon

English Heritage are celebrating 150 years of the blue plaque scheme this year – the oldest of its kind in the world – and so to celebrate we’re looking at 10 of the most notable among them.

Napoleon-III-blue-plaqueFirst up, it’s the oldest surviving blue plaque. Located in King Street in Mayfair, just off St James’s Square, it commemorates the last French Emperor, Napoleon III, who lived at the property while a prince in 1848.

It was only a brief stay for the then soon-to-be emperor. The nephew and heir of Emperor Napoleon I, he , like other members of his family was exiled from France after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and spent the following years in various other countries in Europe as well as, finally, London where he lived firstly at Carlton Gardens and then at the King Street property.

He took the lease on this newly built house in February, 1847, and created what English Heritage has called a “shrine to the Bonapartes” inside, displaying such relics as Napoleon I’s uniforms and a portrait of his famous uncle by the celebrated French artist Paul Delaroche.

The prince was something of a society favourite during his time in London and was invited to join various of St James’s clubs and apparently even enrolled as a special constable during the Chartist riots of 1848.

When the Bourbon monarchy – in the person of King Louis Philippe – was overthrown in France in September that year, the prince abandoned the house to rush back to France (apparently in such a hurry that the story goes that he left his bed unmade and his bath still full of water).

The prince was elected first President of the Second Republic on his return to Paris and in 1852 took his place as Emperor Napoleon III on the restoration of the empire (incidentally, he ended up returning to England in exile following his defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and died in Kent in 1873).

The plaque, installed in 1867, also has the distinction of being the only one installed while the person it commemorates was still alive. The rule now is that those commemorated by a blue plaque need to have been dead for at least 20 years before the honour can be bestowed.

The plaque, which is rather more elaborate than modern versions, was put up by the Society of Arts (they’re mentioned on it) and the design features a French imperial eagle. It was manufactured by Minton Hollins & Co.

For more on Blue Plaques, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.