Who Gets a Blue Plaque and Have We Got Too Many?

“To celebrate the relationship between people and place” is the declared aim of the English Heritage blue plaque scheme. About 900 plagues have been put up around London since 1866 but the modern spread of fame, which was highlighted by the spate of celebrity deaths in 2016, raises the question of whether it is time to think again about just who receives this accolade.

The English Heritage criteria set a high standard for the people who are honoured with plaques but they only apply to new plaques and cannot be applied retrospectively. We often see plaques bearing names we’ve never heard of because they are no longer recognised or are simply not relevant to us. What do we think of such figures as Luke Howard: “Namer of Clouds 1772-1864”? Surely even Ed Sheeran will one day be deemed to be a bigger deal than Mr Horward?

Does the solution lie in a cull or should we embrace new ways of celebrating famous associations with London’s buildings? English Heritage will only commemorate people who have been dead for at least 20 years, so the first 21st Century names will appear in three years’ time and we need to decide if this Victorian idea of plaques is still relevant.

The Rules

To warrant a plaque the person must have lived in London for a sustained period of time and been exceptional in their field.

Only one blue plaque is allowed per person. A handful of figures including author William Makepeace Thackeray had several plaques before this rule was introduced. The only plaque to have been installed while the subject was still alive was for Napoleon III in 1867.

The associated building must be outside the City of London as it has its own scheme run by the City of London Corporation. The building must be in a state that the associated figure would recognise and be visible from a public walkway. A building is allowed a maximum of two plaques. There are 18 examples, such as George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf. That also means that buildings like churches and schools with famous attendees cannot be accepted.

English Heritage offers some tips on the information and research required to formally associate a building with a person. “The first port of call for address information is normally a biography – including entries in the Dictionary of National Biography – or an autobiography. More detail can be obtained from such sources as electoral registers, Post Office directories and census returns.”

The Panel

The Blue Plaques Panel meets three times a year to discuss nominations and includes experts from a variety of fields such as art historian Philip Mould from BBC’s Fake or Fortune. It approves just 12 plaques a year, highlighting the problem of just how you deem a past figure as worthy.

The system has been accused of being biased in favour of British white men. Last year the BBC reported that just 4% of the plaques in London honour black or Asian luminaries. The first was in 1954 for Mahatma Ghandi, who now has one in Bow and another in Baron’s Court where he stayed as a law student.

The Nubian Jak Community Trust was started in 2004 to celebrate black figures and began with Bob Marley in Camden, while an independent working group is helping to nominate more ethnic minority figures for the English Heritage scheme.

Don`t remove plaques but enhance their status?

Maybe London needs a new scheme to keep up with the rising number of modern celebrities while blue plaques continue to mark more traditional icons? These huge round plaques do seem outdated in the digital age, when the internet has given us the freedom to trace our heroes like never before.

A plaque on a relevant period house seems far more appropriate than whacking a pop star’s name on a low-rent flat. Let’s keep our obscure Victorian generals` plaques and celebrate David Bowie’s legacy in other ways. Perhaps we could have a cut-off point when only people who died before the end of the 20th Century can be recognised with a plaque?

Alternatively, let individual premises celebrate who they like. The Wheatsheaf pub in Fitzrovia has imitation plaques to remind punters that Dylan Thomas got smashed where they now stand. I don`t care that Jimmy Hendrix lived next door to Handel`s ghost, and even though I am interested in the now forgotten Portobello shop where he bought his iconic hussar jacket I can always find that out through Wikipedia.

If English Heritage took that level of interest we would spend all our time spotting where Freddie Mercury once had a curry.  Blue plaques will remain an entertaining tourist feature but don`t try cramming 21st Century Terry Wogan into the 19th Century ranks of starched collars and top hats, He is celebrated by the renamed Wogan House at the BBC, and that should do him nicely.

Some names have clearly proved less enduring than anticipated a century ago, and many places have only a passing relationship to the names marked on them. Rather than getting rid of a dud blue plaque we can just allow them to fall into obscurity and let the internet trace those we really care about in the 21st Century.

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