8 fascinating info about girls and the Blue Plaque scheme
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Began in 1866 London’s Blue Plaque scheme honours notable ladies and men all through historical past who’ve lived and labored in a number of the capital’s most formidable buildings.
For extra of a window into how girls have been recognised within the schemes’ greater than a 100-year historical past, under are 8 fascinating info about girls and the Blue Plaque scheme.
1. The primary plaque to a lady was erected in 1876 – although this not survives – and honours Welsh born actress Sarah Siddons (1755 – 1831) who was dubbed ‘one of many best English tragic actresses’.
2. By 1905, simply 5 girls – one actress and 4 writers (together with George Eliot) – had been commemorated with a plaque, with this determine climbing to 45 when English Heritage took over the scheme in 1985.
3. Of the 944 Blue Plaques – simply 132 recognise the achievements of ladies.
4. Earlier this 12 months the London Meeting launched a marketing campaign to redress gender steadiness of London’s Blue Plaques, urging the general public to counsel 100 girls to be nominated.
Nominations included the next:
- Claudia Jones (equal rights campaigner and Caribbean Carnival organiser)
- Jayaben Desai (heroine of the Grunwick strike)
- Reina Lawrence (first feminine councillor elected in London)
- Emily Davison (suffragette, activist)
- Jill Dando (journalist)
- Princess Diana (opens in new tab)
5. Ladies on account of obtain blue plaques (topic to permission from the buildings’ homeowners) are as follows:
- Margaret Lockwood – One in every of Britain’s hottest movie stars of the Nineteen Thirties and Nineteen Forties, who starred in movies together with Alfred Hitchcock’s The Girl Vanishes
- Noor Inayat Khan – a British WWII heroine who was the primary feminine radio operator despatched into Nazi-occupied France
- Gertrude Bell – a traveller, archaeologist and diplomat who grew to become extremely influential to British imperial policy-making
MORE:The whole lot you have to know concerning the girl&residence Wonderful Ladies Awards 2019 in partnership with Hotter (opens in new tab)
6. Although uncommon, there are a variety of London homes which have two official blue plaques; one honouring a person and one honouring a lady. Examples embrace 29 Fitzroy Sq. (George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf) and 20 Maresfield Gardens (Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud).
7. Uncommon blue plaque dedications for ladies embrace Designer of Spitalfields Silks (Anna Maria Garthwaite) and Pal of all in Want (Mary Hughes).
8. The oldest surviving blue plaque to a girls is for Frances (popularly often called Fanny) Burney (1752–1840), an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright.
