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- Herausgeber: The History Press
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009
Connecting people with places, London's distinctive Blue Plaque scheme highlights the buildings where some of the most remarkable men and women in our history and culture have lived and worked. From Richard Burton to Karl Marx, Marie Stopes to Jimi Hendrix, this fully updated 4th edition of The London Blue Plaque Guide has over 900 entries and provides an essential companion to the famous people who have made their homes in the city. It includes updated maps and a useful list of names by profession as well as location. As the definitive guide to the fascinating historical figures who have lived in London, it will be invaluable to residents and tourists alike.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following friends and family members who, over the years, helped me to complete the three editions of this book by showing me quotes and anecdotes about Blue Plaque subjects or by pointing me in the direction of useful books: my late father, Philip Rennison, my mother Eileen Rennison, Hugh Pemberton, Susan Osborne, Andy Taylor, Andrew Holgate, Gordon Kerr, Richard Shephard, Paul Skinner, Andy Walker and Eve Gorton. While I was compiling the first edition of the guide in the late 1990s, Gillian Dawson of Westminster City Council, Geoff Noble of English Heritage and Ruth Barriskill of the Guildhall Library all helped to make my job easier. The first two editions of the book both benefited from the editorial input of Rupert Harding and Clare Bishop of Sutton Publishing. The third edition, published by The History Press, could not have been produced without Jo de Vries, Editorial Director, whose interest in the project and enthusiasm for it encouraged me to update a book which I first wrote more than a decade ago. This fourth edition owes much to the hard work and encouragement of Sophie Bradshaw and Naomi Reynolds at The History Press.
The author and publisher are grateful for permission to reproduce pictures:
from the English Heritage Photographic Library: pp. 107, 202
from Illustrated London News: pp. 12, 14, 15, 41, 55, 70, 76, 78, 84, 88, 102, 110, 122, 131, 153, 160, 170, 176, 193, 200, 206, 210, 211, 231, 286, 291
by courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London: pp. 85, 89, 103, 115, 142, 183, 201, 207, 231, 233, 236, 240, 265, 275, 278
CONTENTS
Title
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Maps
Map Index
A to Z of Names
Bibliography
List of Names by Profession
List of Names by Postal Code
Copyright
INTRODUCTION
The idea of placing commemorative plaques on the houses of the great and the good was first mooted in 1863 by William Ewart. Ewart was a Liberal MP whose most significant achievement was the passing of the Public Libraries Act of 1850, which he had introduced as a private member’s bill the previous year. In putting forward the idea of commemorative plaques he wrote that ‘the places which had been the residences of the ornaments of their history could not but be precious to all thinking Englishmen’. (Ewart himself now has his own Blue Plaque in Eaton Place, erected 100 years after he first proposed the idea.) Sir Henry Cole, the first director of what we now know as the Victoria and Albert Museum, was one of those who most vigorously championed Ewart’s proposal. Ewart’s original intention had been that the government would fund a plaque scheme, but the administration of the day declined to do so. The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) stepped into the breach and in 1864 formed a committee to oversee the choosing and erection of the first plaques. The committee was enthusiastic about the idea that the plaques might give pleasure to ‘travellers up and down in omnibuses etc’, and that they ‘might sometimes prove an agreeable and instructive mode of beguiling a somewhat dull and not very rapid progress through the streets’ but, as committees do, it took time to turn its words into actions. It was not until 1867 that the first plaque was erected under the auspices of the RSA. This was placed on 24 Holles Street, once the home of Lord Byron and now, sadly, demolished.
The erection of plaques under the RSA was a slow and stately process. By 1901, when the scheme was taken over by the London County Council (LCC), thirty-six plaques had been put up in thirty-four years. Many of these have now disappeared, the victims of development, demolition and wartime bombs. The oldest plaques still in place are those to Napoleon III in King Street and to the poet John Dryden in Gerrard Street – both date from 1875. Under the LCC the speed with which plaques were erected quickened significantly; they were in charge of the scheme for sixty-four years and put up more than 250 plaques in that period. When, in 1965, the LCC metamorphosed into the Greater London Council (GLC), the new organisation took responsibility for the plaques. Under the GLC the geographical and cultural range of the plaques both expanded. Plaques were erected in outlying London boroughs that had not been under the jurisdiction of the LCC, and there was a more populist choice of individuals deemed worthy of commemoration. (Somebody at the GLC seemed to have a particular fondness for old music-hall stars. At least half a dozen were given their own plaques in the GLC years.) In 1985, with the abolition of the GLC, a new home had to be found for the Blue Plaque scheme (as it was now popularly known) and the Local Government Act of that year gave responsibility to English Heritage.
For thirty years English Heritage have continued to run the scheme and they have put up a further 360 plaques. Currently the decisions about which people should and should not be commemorated are made by the Blue Plaques Panel, which meets three times a year under the chairmanship of Professor Ronald Hutton. Other members of the panel include Sir Peter Bazalgette, Greg Dyke, Professor Jane Glover and the former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion. In 2012, there were a number of newspaper reports, most of them inaccurate, suggesting that the scheme was being suspended because of funding cuts. In fact, as English Heritage hurried to make clear in a statement, the scheme was only temporarily closed to new applications while a backlog was reduced. In June 2014, thanks in particular to a generous donation by one individual, the scheme reopened to nominations.
What criteria are used to select the recipients of a Blue Plaque? Any scheme which, in the same year (2014), can commemorate the crime novelist Raymond Chandler, the nineteenth-century Irish political leader Daniel O’Connell and the comedian Tony Hancock, obviously has pleasingly wide-ranging terms of reference. When the official scheme began under the RSA, there were few hard and fast guidelines but, under the LCC and the GLC, rules developed and English Heritage now publish a set of principles for the choosing of those honoured by Blue Plaques. These people must be ‘regarded as eminent and distinguished by a majority of members of their own profession or calling’. They must have ‘made some important positive contribution to human welfare or happiness’. They must be ‘of significant public standing in a London-wide, national or international context’ and ‘their achievements should have made an exceptional impact in terms of public recognition’. Perhaps the last condition is sometimes honoured in the breach rather than the observance. How much public recognition is there of the name of Sir Fabian Ware, the founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission? Or Dame Ida Mann, a leading twentieth-century ophthalmologist? Or the Victorian sculptor Carlo Marochetti? Yet all three have been honoured in the last few years and who would begrudge them their plaques? Part of the delight in coming across London plaques is the stimulus it often gives to discovering more about the City’s past inhabitants. The principle of selection on which English Heritage has been most insistent is the one of time. Without exception, people will not be considered until they have been dead for twenty years. Inside these guidelines, and a few others, English Heritage works hard to come up with new people to commemorate; at present, between ten and fifteen new plaques are unveiled each year. English Heritage has also shown itself eager to democratise the process of choice. If you know of a building and individual that you believe worthy of a plaque, you are free to contact English Heritage with the suggestion. A nomination form can be downloaded from their website.
The success of the official London Blue Plaque scheme means that it has been widely copied both in the capital and in other parts of the country. Between 1998 and 2005, English Heritage itself sponsored an expansion of the Blue Plaque scheme into other English cities. Liverpool had English Heritage plaques installed to more than a dozen of its famous residents, including the poet Wilfred Owen, The Beatles’ John Lennon (also recently honoured with a London plaque) and the toy manufacturer Frank Hornby. At the end of 2002 the first English Heritage plaques in Birmingham were erected on houses where the brothers Cadbury, chocolate manufacturers and philanthropists, once lived and they were followed by five more. Plaques were also installed in Southampton (R.J. Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire aircraft, Emily Davies, the campaigner for women’s education and four others) and Portsmouth (the comic actor Peter Sellers, the historian Frances Yates and five others). However, these schemes were only ever intended as pilots and, for a number of reasons, running them in cities outside London proved unworkable. They were stopped in 2007.
In London there are many ‘unofficial’ plaques too – in other words those not put up under the auspices of the RSA, the LCC, the GLC or English Heritage. Many Greater London boroughs have their own schemes. Islington, for example, has been home to some remarkable people and the borough council has erected plaques to some of them, including the eighteenth-century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, the comic actor Kenneth Williams (also awarded an English Heritage plaque in 2014) and the artist Cyril Mann. The Borough of Bromley has plaques to (among others) the children’s author Enid Blyton, the songwriter Ewan MacColl and Thomas Crapper, the aptly named sanitary engineer. Similarly, Lewisham has plaques to some of its famous former residents, amongst them Sir George Grove, founding editor of the famous dictionary of music that bears his name, Ernest Dowson, the decadent poet of the 1890s who was born in the borough, and the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was pastor of a church in Forest Hill for two years in the 1930s before returning to Germany where he died, in 1945, at the hands of the Nazis.
Many non-governmental societies and groups have also sponsored the erection of plaques within London. The Heath and Hampstead Society, for example, has been in existence since 1897 and has been behind the erection of a number of plaques to well-known Hampstead residents, including the cellist Jacqueline du Pré and the photographer Cecil Beaton. The Marchmont Association, for residents of Marchmont Street, Bloomsbury and its environs, established a plaque scheme in 2009 and well over a dozen now exist. In 2014 plaques to William Reeve (56 Marchmont Street), an eighteenth-century composer, the writer Jerome K. Jerome (32 Tavistock Place) and Roger Fry, the artist and critic, were unveiled and more plaques are in the pipeline for 2015. And since 1995 Comic Heritage (part of The Heritage Foundation) has been unveiling its own Blue Plaques to late, lamented comic talents, including Eric Morecambe, Hattie Jacques, Sid James and Harry H. Corbett.
Some groups and organisations have sponsored one-off plaques. The Greek poet Constantine Cavafy lived in England for seven years as a child and adolescent because the family business was there and, in 1974, the London Hellenic Society was instrumental in placing a plaque on the house in Queensborough Terrace, W2 where the Cavafys lived in the mid-1870s. The Brazilian statesman and lawyer Ruy Barbosa lived in Holland Park Gardens in the 1890s, and the Anglo-Brazilian Society has marked his stay with a plaque on No. 17. Quite a few plaques have outlasted their sponsors. On a building in Haymarket, once the Carlton Hotel, there is a plaque to Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese Communist leader who worked in the hotel kitchens for a brief period just before the First World War. It was placed there by an organisation, no longer extant, called the Britain-Vietnam Association.
Finally there are those plaques – and there are many – that have been erected privately by individuals who simply wanted to record a distinguished previous resident of their house and, perhaps, to add extra distinction (and value) to the property. The people thus honoured range from the very well known to the unequivocally obscure. There are several private plaques to Dickens who, in his early career, flitted from address to address. Matthew Arnold has an LCC plaque in Chester Square and a private one, erected fairly recently, in Harrow-on-the-Hill. There are also plaques to less renowned but none the less interesting people, including the American poet Hilda Doolittle (Mecklenburgh Square), the record producer Joe Meek (Holloway Road), the Punch illustrator Linley Sambourne (his house at 18, Stafford Terrace, W1, is also preserved as a museum and monument to upper-middle-class Victorian taste) and the physician James Parkinson (Hoxton Square) who was the first to describe the disease that bears his name.
Primarily this is a guide to the individuals who have been honoured by a plaque sponsored by the official Blue Plaques scheme. There are now nearly 900 official plaques, most to individuals but a few to historic buildings or events, and all the ones in place at the end of January 2015 are included in this guide. Visitors in central London will regularly come across plaques belonging to two other schemes. Firstly there are those erected by the Corporation of the City of London. Most of these refer to buildings which once stood on a site but some refer to individuals and I have included those that do. Westminster City Council has a scheme of Green Plaques, nearly all of which refer to individuals and I have included these in this guide. Where an individual has both an official plaque and one or more erected unofficially, I have, for the sake of completeness, included the unofficial ones as well. As I have noted earlier, many private individuals and organisations have sponsored unofficial plaques and, for reasons of space, I have not been able to include these. All the plaques that are not part of the official scheme, now run by English Heritage, have been marked as such in the text.
MAPS ANDMAP INDEX
Map 1; index pp. xxi–xxii
Map 2; index pp. xxii–xxv
Map 3; index pp. xxv–xxvii
Map 4; index pp. xxviii
Map 5; index pp. xxviii–xxx
Map 6; index pp. xxx–xxxi
Map 7; index pp. xxxi–xxxii
MAP INDEX
MAP 1
1. Laura Knight
16 Langford Place, NW8
1A
2. Alexis Soyer
28 Marlborough Place, NW8
1A
3. T.H. Huxley
38 Marlborough Place, NW8
1A
4. Sir Edward Elgar
Abbey Studios, Abbey Road, NW6
1A
5. Sir Thomas Beecham
31 Grove End Road, NW8
1A
6. Joseph Hertz
103 Hamilton Terrace, NW8
1A
7. Philip Jones
14 Hamilton Terrace, NW8
1A
8. William Strang
20 Hamilton Terrace, NW8
1A
9. Gerald Finzi
93 Hamilton Terrace, NW8
1A
10. Sir Joseph Bazalgette
17 Hamilton Terrace, NW8
1A
11. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
44 Grove End Road, NW8
1A
12. John William Waterhouse
10 Hall Road, NW8
1A
13. Emily Davies
17 Cunningham Place, NW8
1A
14. John Masefield
30 Maida Avenue, W2
1A
15. Lokamanya Tilak
10 Howley Place, W2
1A
16. Benjamin Britten
45a St John’s Wood High Street, NW8
1B
17. Madame Tussaud
24 Wellington Road, NW8
1B
18. Beatty & Cochrane
Hanover Lodge, Outer Circle, NW1
1B
19. Anthony Salvin
11 Hanover Terrace, NW1
1B
20. Ralph Vaughan Williams
10 Hanover Terrace, NW1
1B
21. Jose de San Martin
23 Park Road, NW1
1B
22. E.H. Shepard
10 Kent Terrace, NW1
1B
23. H.G. Wells
13 Hanover Terrace, NW1
1B
24. Haydon & Rossi
116 Lisson Grove, NW1
1B
25. Robert Browning
17 Warwick Crescent, W2
1C
26. Alexander Herzen
1 Orsett Terrace, W2
1C
27. Charles Manby
60 Westbourne Terrace, W2
1C
28. Susan Lawrence
44 Westbourne Terrace, W2
1C
29. Tommy Handley
34 Craven Road, W2
1C
30. Bret Harte
74 Lancaster Gate, W2
1C
31. J.M. Barrie
100 Bayswater Road, W2
1C
32. George Richmond
20 York Street, W1
1D
33. Emma Cons
136 Seymour Place, W1
1D
34. Cato Street Conspiracy
1a Cato Street, W1
1D
35. Mary Seacole
157 George Street, W1
1D
36. Thomas Moore
85 George Street, W1
1D
37. Olive Schreiner
16 Portsea Place, W2
1D
38. Violet Bonham-Carter
43 Gloucester Square, W2
1D
39. Richard Tauber
Park West, Edgeware Road, W2
1D
40. Robert Stephenson
35 Gloucester Square, W2
1D
41. Marie Taglioni
14 Connaught Square, W2
1D
42. W.H. Smith
12 Hyde Park Street, W2
1D
43. W.M. Thackeray
16 Albion Street, W2
1D
44. Winston Churchill
3 Sussex Square, W2
1D
45. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
Chester House, Clarendon Place, W2
1D
46. Sir Charles Vyner Brooke
13 Albion Street, W2
1D
A. Margery Allingham
1 Westbourne Terrace Road
1C
B. Henry Sylvester Williams
38 Church Street, W2
1D
C. Hertha Ayrton
41 Norfolk Square, W2
1D
D. Dame Lucie Rie
18 Albion Mews, W2
1D
MAP 2
47. Elizabeth Bowen
1–7 Clarence Terrace, NW1
2A
48. Ernest Jones
19 York Terrace East, NW1
2A
49. Sir Charles Wyndham
20 York Terrace East, NW1
2A
50. H.G. Wells
Chiltern Court, Baker Street, NW1
2A
51. Eric Coates
Chiltern Court, Baker Street, NW1
2A
52. Arnold Bennett
Chiltern Court, Baker Street, NW1
2A
53. Powell & Pressburger
Dorset House, Gloucester Place, NW1
2A
54. Kenneth Williams
Farley Court, Allsop Place, NW1
2A
55. Francis Turner Palgrave
5 York Gate, Regent’s Park, NW1
2A
56. Sheila Sherlock
41 York Terrace East, NW1
2A
57. Charles Eamer Kempe
37 Nottingham Place, W1
2A
58. Charles Cockerell
13 Chester Terrace, NW1
2B
59. Constant Lambert
197Albany Street, NW1
2B
60. Henry Mayhew
55 Albany Street, NW1
2B
61. Fabian Society
White House, Osnaburgh Street, NW1
2B
62. F.D. Maurice
2 Upper Harley Street, NW1
2B
63. Lord Lister
12 Park Crescent, W1
2B
64. Marie Tempest
24 Park Crescent, W1
2B
65. Sir Charles Wheatstone
19 Park Crescent, W1
2B
66. James Boswell
122 Great Portland Street, W1
2B
67. John Flaxman
7 Greenwell Street, W1
2B
68. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2 Upper Wimpole Street, W1
2B
69. Dr Grantly Dick-Read
25 Harley Street, W1
2B
70. United States Embassy
98 Portland Place, W1
2B
71. David Hughes
94 Great Portland Street, W1
2B
72. Samuel Morse
141 Cleveland Street, W1
2B
73. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero
115a Harley Street, W1
2B
74. Frances Hodgson Burnett
63 Portland Place, W1
2B
75. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
110 Hallam Street, W1
2B
76. James Barry
36 Eastcastle Street, W1
2B
77. William Pitt the Younger
120 Baker Street, W1
2C
78. Wilkie Collins
65 Gloucester Place, W1
2C
79. John Robert Godley
48 Gloucester Place, W1
2C
80. Sir Gerald Kelly
117 Gloucester Place, W1
2C
81. Tony Ray-Jones
102 Gloucester Place, W1
2C
82. Charles Babbage
1A Dorset Street, W1
2C
83. Octavia Hill
2 Garbutt Place, W1
2C
84. Viscardo Y. Guzman
185 Baker Street, W1
2C
85. Sir Francis Beaufort
51 Manchester Street, W1
2C
86. Michael Faraday
48 Blandford Street, W1
2C
87. Sir Fabian Ware
14 Wyndham Placem, W1
2C
88. Anthony Trollope
39 Montagu Square, W1
2C
89. Sir Henry Segrave
St Andrew’s Mansions, Dorset Street, W1
2C
90. Mustapha Pasha Reschid
1 Bryanston Square, W1
2C
91. John Lennon
34 Montagu Square, W1
2C
92. George Grossmith Junior
3 Spanish Place, W1
2C
93. Frederick Marryat
3 Spanish Place, W1
2C
94. Alfred Milner
14 Manchester Square, W1
2C
95. Julius Benedict
2 Manchester Square, W1
2C
96. John Hughlings Jackson
3 Manchester Square, W1
2C
97. Simon Bolivar
4 Duke Street, W1
2C
98. Elizabeth Garret Anderson
20 Upper Berkeley Street, W1
2C
99. Michael Balfe
12 Seymour Street, W1
2C
100. Edward Lear
30 Seymour Street, W1
2C
101. Randolph Churchill
2 Connaught Place, W2
2C
102. Tyburn Tree
Marble Arch Traffic Island, W2
2C
103. Thomas Sopwith
46 Green Street, W1
2C
104. P.G. Wodehouse
17 Dunraven Street, W1
2C
105. George Seferis
51 Upper Brook Street, W1
2C
106. Leo Bonn
22 Upper Brook Street, W1
2C
107. Frederick Handley Page
18 Grosvenor Square, W1
2C
108. Sir Robert Peel
16 Grosvenor Street, W1
2C
109. Sir Alexander Korda
21/22 Upper Grosvenor Street, W1
2C
110. J. Arthur Rank
38 South Street, W1
2C
111. Charles X
72 South Audley Street, W1
2C
112. Constance Spry
64 South Audley Street, W1
2C
113. Lord Ashfield
43 South Street, W1
2C
114. Anna Neagle
63-64 Park Lane, W1
2C
115. Sir Moses Montefiore
99 Park Lane, W1
2C
116. Keith Clifford Hall
140 Park Lane, W1
2C
117. Benjamin Disraeli
93 Park Lane, W1
2C
118. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2 Upper Wimpole Street, W1
2D
119. Sir John Milsom Rees
18 Upper Wimpole Street, W1
2D
120. Ethel Fenwick
20 Upper Wimpole Street, W1
2D
121. Lionel Logue
146 Harley Street, W1
2D
122. Thomas Gage
41 Portland Place, W1
2D
123. Sir Evelyn Baring
36 Wimpole Street, W1
2D
124. Sir Frederick Treves
6 Wimpole Street, W1
2D
125. W.E. Gladstone
73 Harley Street, W1
2D
126. Earl Roberts
47 Portland Place, W1
2D
127. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
50 Wimpole Street, W1
2D
128. Alfred Waterhouse
61 New Cavendish Street, W1
2D
129. Sir Charles Lyell
73 Harley Street, W1
2D
130. Sir Edwin Lutyens
13 Mansfield Street, W1
2D
131. London Ambulance
Weymouth Mews, W1
2D
132. Victor Weisz
Welbeck Mansions, 35 Welbeck Street, W1
2D
133. Henry Hallam
67 Wimpole Street, W1
2D
134. John L. Pearson
13 Mansfield Street, W1
2D
135. Edmond Malone
40 Langham Street, W1
2D
136. Olaudah Equiano
73 Riding House Street, W1
2D
137. Sir Patrick Manson
50 Welbeck Street, W1
2D
138. Florence Nightingale
90 Harley Street, W1
2D
139. Sir Robert Mayer
2 Mansfield Street, W1
2D
140. Thomas Young
48 Welbeck Street, W1
2D
141. Hector Berlioz
58 Queen Anne Street, W1
2D
142. Sir George Still
28 Queen Anne Street, W1
2D
143. J.M.W. Turner
23 Queen Anne Street, W1
2D
144. Charles Stanhope
20 Mansfield Street, W1
2D
145. Edward Gibbon
7 Bentinck Street, W1
2D
146. Sir James Mackenzie
17 Bentinck Street, W1
2D
147. Thomas Woolner
29 Welbeck Street, W1
2D
148. Dr Joseph Clover
3 Cavendish Place, W1
2D
149. George Edmund Street
14 Cavendish Place, W1
2D
150. Joseph Nollekens
44 Mortimer Street, W1
2D
151. Herbert Asquith
20 Cavendish Square, W1
2D
152. Quintin Hogg
5 Cavendish Square, W1
2D
153. Jonathan Hutchinson
15 Cavendish Square, W1
2D
154. Sir Ronald Ross
18 Cavendish Square, W1
2D
155. Martin Van Buren
7 Stratford Place, W1
2D
156. Edward Lear
15 Stratford Place, W1
2D
157. Washington Irving
8 Argyll Street, W1
2D
158. William Roy
10 Argyll Street, W1
2D
159. Ernest Bevin
34 South Molton Street, W1
2D
160. William Blake
17 South Molton Street, W1
2D
161. Prince Talleyrand
21 Hanover Square, W1
2D
162. Colen Campbell
76 Brook Street, W1
2D
163. George Frederic Handel
25 Brook Street, W1
2D
164. Jimi Hendrix
23 Brook Street, W1
2D
165. Sir Jeffry Wyatville
39 Brook Street, W1
2D
166. Horatio Nelson
147 New Bond Street, W1
2D
167. Ann Oldfield
60 Grosvenor Street, W1
2D
168. Terence Donovan
30 Bourdon Street, W1
2D
169. George Canning
50 Berkeley Square, W1
2D
170. Robert Clive
45 Berkeley Square, W1
2D
171. Bernard Sunley
24 Berkeley Square, W1
2D
172. Lord Brougham
5 Grafton Street, W1
2D
173. Sir Henry Irving
15a Grafton Street, W1
2D
174. John Gilbert Winant
7 Aldford Street, W1
2D
175. Florence Nightingale
10 South Street, W1
2D
176. Lord Rosebery
20 Charles Street, W1
2D
177. Lady Dorothy Nevill
45 Charles Street, W1
2D
E. Sir Laurence Gomme
24 Dorset Square, NW1
2A
F. Edward Murrow
Weymouth House, Hallam Street, W1
2D
G. Sir Stewart Duke-Elder
63 Harley Street, W1
2D
H. George Frederick Bodley
109 Harley Street, W1
2D
I. Sake Dean Mahomed
102 George Street, W1
2C
J. James Smithson
9 Bentinck Street, W1
2D
K. William Petty
9 Fitzmaurice Place, W1
2D
L. Harry Gordon Selfridge
9 Fitzmaurice Place, W1
2D
MAP 3
178. Hugh Price Hughes
8 Taviton Street, WC1
3A
179. John Maynard Keynes
46 Gordon Square, WC1
3A
180. Robert Travers Herford
Dr Williams’ Library, Gordon Square, WC1
3A
181. Lytton Strachey
51 Gordon Square, WC1
3A
182. Virginia Woolf
50 Gordon Square, WC1
3A
183. Christina Rossetti
30 Torrington Square, WC1
3A
184. George Dance the Younger
91 Gower Street, WC1
3A
185. Charles Darwin
Biological Science Building, Gower St
3A
186. Dame Millicent Fawcett
2 Gower Street, WC1
3A
187. Lady Ottoline Morrell
10 Gower Street, WC1
3A
188. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
7 Gower Street, WC1
3A
189. James Robinson
14 Gower Street, WC1
3A
190. Sir Charles Eastlake
7 Fitzroy Square, W1
3A
191. Francisco de Miranda
58 Grafton Way, W1
3A
192. Roger Fry
33 Fitzroy Square, W1
3A
193. August W. Hofmann
9 Fitzroy Square, W1
3A
194. Andres Bello
58 Grafton Way, W1
3A
195. George Bernard Shaw
29 Fitzroy Square, W1
3A
196. Virginia Woolf
29 Fitzroy Square, W1
3A
197. Matthew Flinders
56 Fitzroy Street, W1
3A
198. Sir Nigel Gresley
King’s Cross Station, N1
3B
199. Paul Nash
Bidborough Street, WC1
3B
200. Rowland Hill
Cartwright Gardens, WC1
3B
201. W.B. Yeats
5 Woburn Walk, WC1
3B
202. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
21 Mecklenburgh Square, WC1
3B
203. R. H. Tawney
21 Mecklenburgh Square, WC1
3B
204. T.S. Eliot
24 Russell Square, WC1
3B
205. Sir Samuel Romilly
21 Russell Square, WC1
3B
206. John Howard
23 Great Ormond Street, WC1
3B
207. Alexander Herzen
61 Judd Street, WC1
3B
208. Kenneth Williams
57 Marchmont Street, WC1
3B
209. Roger Fry
Woburn Place, WC1
3B
210. F.F.E. Yeo-Thomas
Queen Court, Queen Square, WC1
3B
211. Sir Robert Smirke
81 Charlotte Street, W1
3C
212. Henry Fuseli
37 Foley Street, W1
3C
213. William Butterfield
42 Bedford Square, WC1
3C
214. Henry Cavendish
11 Bedford Square, WC1
3C
215. Lord Eldon
6 Bedford Square, WC1
3C
216. Thomas Hodgkin
35 Bedford Square, WC1
3C
217. Anthony Hope
41 Bedford Square, WC1
3C
218. Ram Mohun Roy
49 Bedford Square, WC1
3C
219. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
71 Berners Street, W1
3C
220. Thomas Stothard
28 Newman Street, W1
3C
221. Charles Laughton
15 Percy Street, W1
3C
222. Coventry Patmore
14 Percy Street, W1
3C
223. H.H. Munro
97 Mortimer Street, W1
3C
224. Randolph Caldecott
46 Great Russell Street, WC2
3C
225. Percy Bysshe Shelley
15 Poland Street, W1
3C
226. Willy Clarkson
41–43 Wardour Street, W1
3C
227. Sir Joseph Banks
32 Soho Square, W1
3C
228. Arthur Onslow
20 Soho Square, W1
3C
229. Jessie Matthews
22 Berwick Street, W1
3C
230. Thomas Sheraton
163 Wardour Street, W1
3C
231. Keith Moon
90 Wardour Street, W1
3C
232. John Logie Baird
22 Frith Street, W1
3C
233. Karl Marx
28 Dean Street, W1
3C
234. William Hazlitt
6 Frith Street, W1
3C
235. Dr Joseph Rogers
33 Dean Street, W1
3C
236. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
20 Frith Street, W1
3C
237. John Stephen
1 Carnaby Street, W1
3C
238. Charles Bridgeman
54 Broadwick Street, W1
3C
239. John Polidori
38 Great Pulteney Street, W1
3C
240. Canaletto
41 Beak Street, W1
3C
241. John Hunter
31 Golden Square, W1
3C
242. Sir Morell Mackenzie
32 Golden Square, W1
3C
243. Portuguese Embassy
23–24 Golden Square, W1
3C
244. William Hunter
Great Windmill Street, W1
3C
245. George Basevi
17 Savile Row, W1
3C
246. Richard Bright
11 Savile Row, W1
3C
247. George Grote
12 Savile Row, W1
3C
248. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
14 Savile Row, W1
3C
249. Edmund Burke
37 Gerrard Street, W1
3C
250. John Dryden
43 Gerrard Street, W1
3C
251. Paul de Lamerie
40 Gerrard Street, W1
3C
252. Turk’s Head Tavern
9 Gerrard Street, W1
3C
253. Sir Mortimer Wheeler
27 Whitcomb Street, WC2
3C
254. Sir Hans Sloane
4 Bloomsbury Place, WC1
3D
255. Benjamin Disraeli
22 Theobalds Road, WC1
3D
256. Lord Chesterfield
45 Bloomsbury Square, WC1
3D
257. Robert Willan
10 Bloomsbury Square, WC1
3D
258. Bertrand Russell
Bury Place, WC1
3D
259. Thomas Henry Wyatt
77 Great Russell Street, WC1
3D
260. John Nash
66 Great Russell Street, WC1
3D
261. Augustus Charles Pugin
106 Great Russell Street, WC1
3D
262. George Du Maurier
91 Great Russell Street, WC1
3D
263. Sir John Barbirolli
Southampton Row, WC1
3D
264. W.R. Lethaby
Southampton Row, WC1
3D
265. Cardinal Newman
17 Southampton Place, WC1
3D
266. Thomas Earnshaw
119 High Holborn, WC1
3D
267. Augustus Siebe
5 Denmark Street, WC2
3D
268. Sidney Webb
44 Cranbourn Street, WC2
3D
269. Al Bowlly
Charing Cross Mansions, WC2
3D
270. Thomas Chippendale
61 St Martin’s Lane, WC2
3D
271. Ken Colyer
11–12 Great Newport Street, WC2
3D
272. Sir Joshua Reynolds
5 Great Newport Street, WC2
3D
273. John Logie Baird
132–35 Long Acre, WC2
3D
274. Denis Johnson
69–75 Long Acre, WC1
3D
275. Henry & John Fielding
Bow Street, WC2
3D
276. Thomas Arne
31 King Street, WC2
3D
277. Dr Johnson & Boswell
8 Russell Street, WC2
3D
278. Jane Austen
10 Henrietta Street, WC2
3D
279. Thomas De Quincey
36 Tavistock Street, WC2
3D
280. William Terriss
Maiden Lane, WC2
3D
281. J.M.W. Turner
21 Maiden Lane, WC2
3D
282. Voltaire
10 Maiden Lane, WC2
3D
283. David Garrick
27 Southampton Street, WC2
3D
284. The Savoy Theatre
The Strand, WC2
3D
285. Sir Richard Arkwright
8 Adam Street, WC2
3D
286. Thomas Rowlandson
16 John Adam Street, WC2
3D
287. Robert Adam
1–3 Adam Street, WC2
3D
288. The Adelphi
Adelphi Terrace, WC2
3D
289. Rudyard Kipling
43 Villiers Street, WC2
3D
290. Samuel Pepys
12 Buckingham Street, WC2
3D
291. Clarkson Stanfield
14 Buckingham Street, WC2
3D
292. Benjamin Franklin
36 Craven Street, WC2
3D
293. Heinrich Heine
32 Craven Street, WC2
3D
M. Robert Salisbury
21 Fitzroy Square, W1
3A
N. Sir Harry Ricardo
13 Bedford Square, WC1
3C
O. William Lilly
Strand Underground Station
3D
P. Tom Cribb
36 Panton Street, SW1
3C
Q. Herman Melville
25 Craven Street, WC2
3D
MAP 4
294. Edward Irving
4 Claremont Square, N1
4A
295. George Cruikshank
69–71 Amwell Street, EC1
4A
296. Thomas Carlyle
33 Ampton Street, WC1
4A
297. Joseph Grimaldi
56 Exmouth Market, EC1
4A
298. W.R. Lethaby
20 Calthorpe Street, WC1
4A
299. Brittain & Holtby
58 Doughty Street, WC1
4A
300. Charles Dickens
48 Doughty Street, WC1
4A
301. Sydney Smith
14 Doughty Street, WC1
4A
302. Giuseppe Mazzini
10 Laystall Street, EC1
4A
303. Giuseppe Mazzini
5 Hatton Garden, EC1
4A
304. Dorothy L. Sayers
24 Great James Street, WC1
4A
305. Charles Lamb
64 Duncan Terrace, N1
4B
306. John Wesley
47 City Road, EC1
4B
307. John Groom
8 Sekforde Street, EC1
4B
308. Sir Hiram Maxim
57d Hatton Garden, EC1
4C
309. Sir Samuel Romilly
6 Gray’s Inn Square, WC1
4C
310. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
17 Red Lion Square, WC1
4C
311. John Harrison
Summit House, Red Lion Square, WC1
4C
312. Thomas Chatterton
39 Brooke Street, EC1
4C
313. Spencer Perceval
59–60 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2
4C
314. William Marsden
65 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2
4C
315. Samuel Johnson
17 Gough Square, EC4
4C
316. Samuel Johnson
Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, EC4
4C
317. Essex Street
Essex Hall, Essex Street, WC2
4C
318. Charles Lamb
2 Crown Office Row, Temple, EC4
4C
319. William Hazlitt
6 Bouverie Street, EC4
4C
320. Charles Wesley
13 Little Britain, EC1
4D
321. Labour Party
Farringdon Street, EC4
4D
322. Guglielmo Marconi
BT Building, Newgate Street, EC1
4D
323. Thomas Tompion
67 Fleet Street, EC4
4D
324. Samuel Pepys
Salisbury Court, EC4
4D
325. Edgar Wallace
Corner of Ludgate Circus, EC4
4D
326. Thomas Linacre
Knightrider Street, EC4
4D
MAP 5
327. Sir Malcolm Sargent
Albert Hall Mansions, SW7
5A
328. Sir Robert Baden-Powell
9 Hyde Park Gate, SW7
5A
329. Enid Bagnold
29 Hyde Park Gate, SW7
5A
330. Sir Leslie Stephen
22 Hyde Park Gate, SW7
5A
331. Winston Churchill
28 Hyde Park Gate, SW7
5A
332. Tony Hancock
20 Queen’s Gate Place, SW7
5A
333. Ivy Compton-Burnett
Braemar Mansions, Cornwall Gardens
5A
334. Douglas Bader
5 Petersham Mews, SW7
5A
335. Charles Booth
6 Grenville Place, SW7
5A
336. Sir Charles James Freake
21 Cromwell Road, SW7
5A
337. Sir John Lavery
5 Cromwell Place, SW7
5A
338. Sir Francis Galton
42 Rutland Gate, SW7
5B
339. Lord Lugard
51 Rutland Gate, SW7
5B
340. Bruce Bairnsfather
1 Sterling Street, SW7
5B
341. E.F. Benson
25 Brompton Square, SW3
5B
342. Stéphane Mallarmé
6 Brompton Square, SW3
5B
343. Francis Place
21 Brompton Square, SW3
5B
344. Jenny Lind
189 Brompton Road, SW7
5B
345. George Godwin
24 Alexander Square, SW3
5B
346. Sir Benjamin Thompson
168 Brompton Road, SW3
5B
347. Elisabeth Welch
Ovington Court, Ovington Gardens, SW5
5B
348. Alfred Hitchcock
153 Cromwell Road, SW5
5C
349. Sir John Millais
7 Cromwell Place, SW7
5C
350. Sir William Gilbert
39 Harrington Gardens, SW7
5C
351. Sir Edwin Arnold
31 Bolton Gardens, SW5
5C
352. Viscount Allenby
24 Wetherby Gardens, SW5
5C
353. George Borrow
22 Hereford Square, SW7
5C
354. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree
31 Rosary Gardens, SW7
5C
355. Baron Carlo Marochetti
32 Onslow Square, SW7
5C
356. James Froude
5 Onslow Gardens, SW7
5C
357. Andrew Bonar Law
24 Onslow Gardens, SW7
5C
358. W.E.H. Lecky
38 Onslow Gardens, SW7
5C
359. Rosalind Franklin
Donovan Court, Drayton Gardens
5C
360. Mervyn Peake
1 Drayton Gardens, SW10
5C
361. Frank Dobson
14 Harley Gardens, SW10
5C
362. Sir Stafford Cripps
32 Elm Park Gardens, SW10
5C
363. Augustus John
28 Mallord Street, SW3
5C
364. Princess Astafieva
152 King’s Road, SW3
5C
365. John Ireland
14 Gunter Grove, SW10
5C
366. George Meredith
7 Hobury Street, SW10
5C
367. Hilaire Belloc
104 Cheyne Walk, SW10
5C
368. Isambard Kingdom Brunel
98 Cheyne Walk, SW10
5C
369. Mrs Gaskell
93 Cheyne Walk, SW10
5C
370. Sir Henry Cole
33 Thurloe Square, SW7
5D
371. François Guizot
21 Pelham Crescent, SW7
5D
372. Sir Nigel Playfair
26 Pelham Crescent, SW7
5D
373. Robert Fitzroy
38 Onslow Square, SW7
5D
374. W.M. Thackeray
36 Onslow Square, SW7
5D
375. Béla Bartók
7 Sydney Place, SW7
5D
376. Joseph Hansom
27 Sumner Place, SW7
5D
377. Dame Maud McCarthy
47 Markham Square, SW3
5D
378. Dame Sybil Thorndike
6 Carlyle Square, SW3
5D
379. A.A. Milne
13 Mallord Street, SW3
5D
380. Sir Carol Reed
213 King’s Road, SW3
5D
381. Ellen Terry
215 King’s Road, SW3
5D
382. Percy Grainger
31 King’s Road, SW3
5D
383. John Betjeman
29 Radnor Walk, SW3
5D
384. Jean Rhys
Paultons House, Paultons Square, SW3
5D
385. William De Morgan
127 Old Church Street, SW3
5D
386. Leigh Hunt
22 Upper Cheyne Row, SW3
5D
387. George Gissing
33 Oakley Gardens, SW3
5D
388. Sir Alexander Fleming
20a Danvers Street, SW3
5D
389. George Eliot
4 Cheyne Walk, SW3
5D
390. J.M.W. Turner
119 Cheyne Walk, SW3
5D
391. Rossetti & Swinburne
16 Cheyne Walk, SW3
5D
392. Lady Wilde
87 Oakley Street, SW3
5D
393. Captain Scott
56 Oakley Street, SW3
5D
394. Sylvia Pankhurst
120 Cheyne Walk, SW10
5D
R. Dennis Gabor
79 Queen’s Gate, SW7
5A
S. Junius & John Morgan
14 Princes Gate, SW1
5B
T. Sir Terence Rattigan
100 Cornwall Gardens, SW7
5A
U. Dr Margery Blackie
18 Thurloe Street, SW7
5B
V. Joyce Grenfell
34 Elm Park Gardens, SW10
5C
MAP 6
395. George Bentham
25 Wilton Place, SW1
6A
396. Lillie Langtry
8 Wilton Place, SW1
6A
397. Lord & Lady Mountbatten
2 Wilton Crescent, SW1
6A
398. Jane Austen
23 Hans Place, SW1
6A
399. Dorothy Jordan
30 Cadogan Place, SW1
6A
400. Sir George Alexander
57 Pont Street, SW1
6A
401. Lillie Langtry
21 Pont Street, SW1
6A
402. William Wilberforce
44 Cadogan Place, SW1
6A
403. Lord John Russell
37 Chesham Place, SW1
6A
404. Arnold Bennett
75 Cadogan Square, SW1
6A
405. Sir Charles Dilke
76 Sloane Street, SW1
6A
406. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree
76 Sloane Street, SW1
6A
407. William Walton
8 Lowndes Place, SW1
6A
408. Thomas Cubitt
3 Lyall Street, SW1
6A
409. Baron Avebury
29 Eaton Place, SW1
6A
410. Frederic Chopin
99 Eaton Place, SW1
6A
411. Stanley Baldwin
93 Eaton Square, SW1
6A
412. Neville Chamberlain
37 Eaton Square, SW1
6A
413. Edward Meryon
17 Clarges Street, W1
6B
414. Wendy Richard
50 Hertford Street, W1
6B
415. Walter Bagehot
12 Upper Belgrave Street, SW1
6B
416. Lord Tennyson
9 Upper Belgrave Street, SW1
6B
417. Henry Gray
8 Wilton Street, SW1
6B
418. Felix Mendelssohn
4 Hobart Place, SW1
6B
419. Henry Campbell-Bannerman
6 Grosvenor Place, SW1
6B
420. F.E. Smith
32 Grosvenor Gardens, SW1
6B
421. Henry Pitt-Rivers
4 Grosvenor Gardens, SW1
6B
422. Sir Henry Pelham
22 Arlington Street, SW1
6B
423. Sir Robert Walpole
5 Arlington Street, SW1
6B
424. Wilfred Scawen Blunt
15 Buckingham Gate, SW1
6B
425. Leslie Hore-Belisha
16 Stafford Place, SW1
6B
426. Lord Halifax
86 Eaton Square, SW1
6B
427. Cardinal Manning
22 Carlisle Place, SW1
6B
428. Prince Metternich
44 Eaton Square, SW1
6B
429. George Peabody
80 Eaton Square, SW1
6B
430. Matthew Arnold
2 Chester Square, SW1
6B
431. Admiral Jellicoe
25 Draycott Place, SW3
6C
432. Bram Stoker
18 St Leonard’s Terrace, SW3
6C
433. Jerome K. Jerome
Chelsea Bridge Road, SW1
6C
434. Mark Twain
23 Tedworth Square, SW3
6C
435. Oscar Wilde
34 Tite Street, SW3
6C
436. Peter Warlock
30 Tite Street, SW3
6C
437. Lord Ripon
9 Chelsea Embankment, SW3
6C
438. William Ewart
16 Eaton Place, SW1
6C
439. Vita Sackville-West
182 Ebury Street, SW1
6C
440. Lord Kelvin
15 Eaton Place, SW1
6D
441. Dame Edith Evans
109 Ebury Street, SW1
6D
442. Ian Fleming
22 Ebury Street, SW1
6D
443. George Moore
121 Ebury Street, SW1
6D
444. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
180 Ebury Street, SW1
6D
445. Harold Nicolson
182 Ebury Street, SW1
6D
446. Joseph Conrad
17 Gillingham Street, SW1
6D
447. Winston Churchill
34 Eccleston Square, SW1
6D
448. Laura Ashley
83 Cambridge Street, SW1
6D
449. Aubrey Beardsley
114 Cambridge Street, SW1
6D
W. Bert Ambrose
May Fair Hotel, Stratton Street, W1
6B
X. Viscount Gort
34 Belgrave Square, SW1
6A
Y. Count Edward Raczyñski
8 Lennox Gardens, SW1
6A
Z. Mary Shelley
24 Chester Square, SW1
6B
AA. Sir Michael Costa
59 Eccleston Square, SW1
6D
BB. Arthur Haygarth
88 Warwick Way, SW1
6D
CC. Swami Vivekenanda
63 St George’s Drive, SW1
6D
DD. Jomo Kenyatta
95 Cambridge Street, SW1
6D
EE. Douglas Macmillan
15 Ranelagh Road, SW1
6D
MAP 7
450. Nancy Astor
4 St James’s Square, SW1
7A
451. Lord Derby
10 St James’s Square, SW1
7A
452. W.E. Gladstone
10 St James’s Square, SW1
7A
453. William Pitt the Elder
10 St James’s Square, SW1
7A
454. Thomas Gainsborough
82 Pall Mall, SW1
7A
455. Francis Chichester
9 St James’s Place, SW1
7A
456. William Huskisson
28 St James’s Place, SW1
7A
457. Winston Churchill
29 St James’s Place, SW1
7A
458. General de Gaulle
4 Carlton Gardens, SW1
7A
459. Lord Kitchener
2 Carlton Gardens, SW1
7A
460. Lord Palmerston
4 Carlton Gardens, SW1
7A
461. Lord Curzon
1 Carlton House Terrace, SW1
7A
462. W.E. Gladstone
11 Carlton House Terrace, SW1
7A
463. Admiral John Fisher
16 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1
7A
464. Sir Edward Grey
3 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1
7A
465. Lord Haldane
28 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1
7A
466. Lord Palmerston
20 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1
7A
467. William Smith
16 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1
7A
468. Charles Townley
14 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1
7A
469. James & John Stuart Mill
40 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1
7A
470. Jeremy Bentham
29 Queen Anne’s Gate, SW1
7A
471. Winston Churchill
Caxton Hall, Caxton Street, SW1
7A
472. Scotland Yard
Whitehall Place, SW1
7B
473. H.M. Stanley
2 Richmond Terrace, SW1
7B
474. John Peake Knight
12 Bridge Street, SW1
7B
475. Sir Michael Balcon
57a Tufton Street, SW1
7B
476. Eleanor Rathbone
Tufton Court, Tufton Street, SW1
7B
477. Siegfried Sassoon
54 Tufton Street, SW1
7B
478. Major Walter Wingfield
33 St George’s Square, SW1
7C
479. Francis Crick
56 St George’s Square, SW1
7C
480. Millbank Prison
Millbank, SW1
7D
FF. W.T. Stead
5 Smith Square, SW1
7B
A TO Z OF NAMES
ABRAHAMS, HAROLD (1899–1978)Olympic athlete, lived here
HODFORD LODGE, 2 HODFORD ROAD, NW11
Anyone who has seen the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire knows something of the achievements of Harold Abrahams. Played in the film by Ben Cross, Abrahams was the gold medal winner in the 100m at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, unexpectedly beating the American Charley Paddock, then regarded as ‘the world’s fastest human’. As the film makes clear, Abrahams’s victory was controversial because he had employed Sam Mussabini, a professional trainer, to coach him and, in those days of strict amateurism, it was considered hardly gentlemanly to do so. Presumably Mussabini’s advice was usually more wide-ranging than that contained in the note he is said to have left with Abrahams on the day of the race. ‘Only think of two things,’ it read, ‘the report of the pistol and the tape. When you hear the one, just run like hell until you break the other.’ A year after his triumph in Paris, Abrahams broke his leg during training for the long jump, another event in which he excelled, and was forced to give up competitive athletics. Once retired, he became a lawyer (he had studied law at Cambridge) but he continued his involvement in sport. He was athletics correspondent for the Sunday Times for many years and was also a regular broadcaster on the BBC. He was elected President of the Amateur Athletics Association in 1976, two years before he died.
ADAM, ROBERT (1728–1792)architect; THOMAS HOOD (1799–1845), poet; JOHN GALSWORTHY (1867–1933), novelist and playwright; SIR JAMES BARRIE (1860-1937); and other eminent artists and writers, lived here
1–3 ROBERT STREET, WC2
Robert Adam was the son of a distinguished Scottish architect and, together with his younger brother James, created some of the most original British architecture of the second half of the eighteenth century. From 1761 to 1769 Robert was Architect of the King’s Works, a position in which James succeeded him. Robert Street, named after the elder Adam brother, was part of a larger and more ambitious project to transform an area between the Strand and the Thames. Nos 1–3 Robert Street are original Adam buildings in which the brothers themselves lived from 1778 to 1785. Thomas Hood, the writer of elaborately punning verse and of The Song of the Shirt, lived there from 1828 to 1830. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, was a long-term resident who had a flat there from 1911 until his death. Galsworthy, one of Britain’s few Nobel laureates for literature, lived there briefly during the last two years of the First World War.
ADAMS, HENRY See under entry for UNITED STATES EMBASSY
ADAMS-ACTON, JOHN (1831–1910) sculptor, lived here
14 LANGFORD PLACE, NW8
WESTMINSTER
John Adams-Acton was one of the most prominent portrait sculptors of his day, particularly known for his busts of Gladstone who sat for him many times and became a personal friend. He was also the only Protestant sculptor ever to be allowed to take sittings from Pope Leo XIII. Although a Protestant, Adams-Acton’s connections with the Catholic Church were strong and one of his finest works was the effigy of Cardinal Manning to be seen in Westminster Cathedral. Sadly, Adams-Acton, on leaving the cathedral on one occasion, was hit by a passing vehicle and never fully recovered from his injuries, dying two years later.
ADELPHI TERRACEThis building stands on the site of Adelphi Terrace built by the brothers Adam in 1768–1774. Famous residents in the Terrace include TOPHAM AND LADY DIANA BEAUCLERK, DAVID GARRICK, RICHARD D’OYLY CARTE, THOMAS HARDY and GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.The LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS and the SAVAGE CLUBalso had their premises here. ADELPHI, WC2
One of the greatest acts of architectural vandalism in London in the twentieth century was the destruction of the Adelphi, an imposing development of terraced houses on the site of what had once been Durham House, which had been built by the four Adam brothers in the early 1770s. At the time the brothers took on the site it was a slum area but they transformed it into a series of elegant Georgian town houses. They were demolished in 1936. Topham Beauclerk, a descendant of Charles II and Nell Gwyn, was a good friend of Dr Johnson, who was devastated by Beauclerk’s early death. Beauclerk’s wife Diana was a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough and a talented amateur artist. David Garrick lived here in the 1770s and his widow, who survived him by more than forty years, continued to do so until her own death in 1822. The impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte lived here through the years of his triumphs in producing the Gilbert and Sullivan operas and, in the 1860s, Thomas Hardy studied in an architectural practice that had its offices here. George Bernard Shaw moved in with his wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, after their marriage in 1898. He was closely connected with the development of the London School of Economics which was situated in the Adelphi from 1896 to 1902. The Savage Club, named after the reprobate eighteenth-century poet Richard Savage, had premises there from 1888 to 1907.
ALDRIDGE, IRA (1807–1867) Shakespearean actor, ‘The African Roscius’, lived here
5 HAMLET ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, SE19
The greatest black actor of the nineteenth century was born in New York, the son of a preacher. He came to London as a young man in order to further his career on stage. In 1825, aged only eighteen and billed as a ‘Man of Colour’, he appeared in the lead role in a play entitled A Slave’s Revenge at the Royal Coburg Theatre and, over the next few decades, he performed in towns and cities all around Britain. Othello was, unsurprisingly, a favourite role but he also took on many other parts usually associated with white actors. Throughout his career Aldridge was obliged to struggle against the unthinking, often ludicrous racism of the day. One newspaper told its readers, in all seriousness, that it was quite impossible for him to pronounce English properly ‘owing to the shape of his lips’. Yet less prejudiced reporters in Aldridge’s audiences were in no doubt that they were in the presence of a great actor. One writer noted that the evenings he saw Aldridge play Shakespeare ‘were undoubtedly the best I have ever spent in the theatre’. Much of the African Roscius’s later career was spent touring Europe and he died in the city of Łodź in what is today Poland. He is buried in the Evangelical Cemetery there.
ALEXANDER, SIR GEORGE (1858–1918)actor-manager, lived here
57 PONT STREET, SW1
One of the great actor-managers of his day, Alexander ran the St James’s Theatre in King Street, Piccadilly, from 1891 until his death. The 1890s were his period of greatest artistic and commercial success. He appeared in the dual role of Rudolf Rassendyll and the King in The Prisoner of Zenda and was the first to stage several of Oscar Wilde’s plays, including The Importance of Being Earnest, in which he appeared as John Worthing. Less successful was his staging of Henry James’s play Guy Domville. On the first night, when Alexander came to the line, ‘I am the last of the Domvilles’, a voice from the gallery called back, ‘Well, at any rate, that’s a comfort to know’.
ALLENBY, FIELD MARSHAL EDMUND HENRY HYNMAN, VISCOUNT, (1861–1936)lived here 1928–1936
24 WETHERBY GARDENS, SW5
One of the last great cavalry commanders and a scholarly soldier, who could quote Plato and Homer in the original Greek, Allenby was educated at Sandhurst and, as a young man, saw much service in South Africa, both before and during the Boer War. At the start of the First World War he was in command of the cavalry division which formed part of the British Expeditionary Force sent to France and, the following year, was given charge of the Third Army. Allenby remained on the Western Front until 1917, taking command of the Allied troops at the Battle of Arras, but the Front was scarcely an arena in which to display cavalry skills. This chance came when Allenby was transferred to Palestine where, aided and abetted by the guerrilla forces under Lawrence of Arabia, his army swept the Turks aside and took first Jerusalem and then Damascus. After the war Allenby was high commissioner in Egypt for a number of years. He lived in Wetherby Gardens after he had retired from the army and from public life.
ALLINGHAM, MARGERY (1904–1966) writer of crime fiction and creator of Albert Campion, lived here 1916–1926
1 WESTBOURNE TERRACE ROAD
WESTMINSTER
Margery Allingham was one of the great writers of the Golden Age of English detective fiction and her most famous creation, the affable and gentlemanly Albert Campion, is one of the most engaging of all the amateur detectives the period produced. Allingham came from a family of writers and her first stories were published when she was still in her teens. Campion made his debut in a book published in 1929 and went on to appear in nearly twenty others. Aided sometimes by his wife, the beautiful Lady Amanda, sometimes by the Scotland Yard inspector, Stanislaus Oates, and sometimes by his manservant, the weirdly named Magersfontein Lugg, he solved his mysteries with charm and panache. He is an almost peripheral figure, however, in what many would claim as Allingham’s finest novel, The Tiger in the Smoke, in which a ruthless killer named Jack Havoc is loose in the fog-enshrouded streets of a London that is now long gone. Margery Allingham once described the essential ingredients of a crime novel as ‘a Killing, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an element of satisfaction in it’. For more than forty years her own novels made stylish use of these four essentials.
ALMA-TADEMA, SIR LAWRENCE (1836–1912)painter, lived here 1886–1912
44 GROVE END ROAD, ST JOHN’S WOOD, NW8
Alma-Tadema, one of the most successful painters of Victorian England, was born in the small town of Dronryp in the Netherlands. Trained as an artist at the Antwerp Academy, he moved to London in 1870 and became a naturalised British citizen three years later. Alma-Tadema specialised in meticulously painted reconstructions of life in the ancient world, particularly Ancient Rome, and these proved enormously appealing to his Victorian patrons and buyers. He was one of the most highly paid artists of his time and was awarded a knighthood in 1899 and the Order of Merit in 1905. As one critic remarked, Alma-Tadema’s scenes of everyday life in the Roman world appear to be peopled by ‘Victorians in togas’ and his reputation suffered when Victorian art went out of fashion. More recently his work has been reassessed and his energy and technical skill acknowledged. His house in St John’s Wood was once the property of another successful artist of foreign extraction, James Tissot.
AMBROSE, BERT (c.1896–1971) dance band leader, lived and played here 1927-1940
THE MAY FAIR HOTEL, STRATTON STREET, W1
Born in the East End of London, the son of a Jewish wool merchant, Benjamin Baruch Ambrose began playing the violin as a child. He was taken to America by his aunt when he was in his teens and it was in the States that he launched his professional career as a musician. His American experience stood him in good stead when he returned to London and he was working as a highly paid band leader when he was still a very young man. As Bert Ambrose, or often just Ambrose, he was one of the stars of British popular music in the 1920s and 1930s and his band enjoyed major success on radio, in the recording studio and live on stage in nightclubs and West End hotels. The May Fair Hotel in Stratton Street now carries a Blue Plaque which celebrates Ambrose’s years as maestro in residence there. His name will always be linked with those of two legendary female singers: ‘The Forces’ Sweetheart’, Vera Lynn, sang with his band in the late 1930s and, twenty years later, he discovered and managed the teenage Kathy Kirby. It was backstage at the recording of a TV appearance by Kirby that Ambrose collapsed and died in 1971.
In this house SUSANNA ANNESLEY,mother of JOHN WESLEY,was born 20 January 1669
7 SPITALYARD, BISHOPSGATE, EC2
CITY OF LONDON
Susanna Annesley, the daughter of a well-known Nonconformist, married Samuel Wesley in 1690 and together they had seventeen children, among them John and Charles, the founders of Methodism. She died in 1742 and was buried in Bunhill Fields. John preached a funeral sermon by his mother’s grave and later wrote of the service, ‘It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw or ever expect to see on this side of eternity.’
ARCHER, JOHN RICHARD (1863–1932)Mayor of Battersea who fought social and racial injustice, lived here
55 BRYNMAER ROAD, BATTERSEA, SW11
JOHN RICHARD ARCHER Mayor of Battersea (First Black London Mayor) had a photography shop and lived here 1918–1932
214 BATTERSEA PARK ROAD, SW11
BOROUGH OF WANDSWORTH
When John Richard Archer was elected Mayor of Battersea by his fellow councillors, he became the first black man to hold a senior public office in London. After his election, in a victory speech he predicted that news of his triumph ‘will go forth to all the coloured nations of the world. They will look to Battersea and say “It is the greatest thing you have done. You have shown that you have no racial prejudice, but recognise a man for what you think he has done.”’ Born in Liverpool, the son of a Barbadian father and an Irish mother, Archer settled in London after working as a merchant seaman. After attending the Pan-African Conference held in the city in 1900, he was inspired to enter local politics, joining the Battersea Labour League. Voted on to Battersea Borough Council in 1906, he went on to serve a number of terms as a local councillor and was chosen as the borough’s mayor in November 1913. After his year as mayor, Archer continued to work as a local politician and to advocate social and political reform until his death in July 1932. The house in Brynmaer Road was Archer’s home from the late 1890s to the end of the First World War, the years during which his political career flourished.
ARDIZZONE, EDWARD (1900–1979) artist and illustrator, lived here 1920–1972
130 ELGIN AVENUE, W9
Ardizzone’s father, who was French, worked in the Far East for a telegraph company and Edward was born in Haiphong in what is now Vietnam. He was brought to England as a young boy and raised in Suffolk by his maternal grandparents. After leaving school, he joined his father’s firm as a clerk in London but the urge to draw and paint was ever present and, at the age of twenty-seven, he horrified his family by giving up his secure job to work as a full-time artist. They need not have worried. Within a short while he had had his first one-man show in London and won his first commission as an illustrator. He began to write and illustrate his own books for children in the 1930s – the first was Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain in 1936 – and continued to do so for the rest of his life. Over the years, he also produced illustrations for books by many other writers, from Stig of the Dump by Clive King to the Barsetshire novels of Anthony Trollope. An official war artist during the Second World War (when he accompanied the British Expeditionary Force to France and, in London, was briefly arrested as a spy while sketching during the Blitz), Ardizzone was one of the most original and distinctive illustrators of the twentieth century.
ARKWRIGHT, SIR RICHARD (1732–1792) industrialist and inventor, lived here
8 ADAM STREET, WC2
