We have too many blue plaques these days, according to the head of the British Plaque Trust, Mike Read. The former Radio 1 DJ is worried about devaluing the properly important ones by erecting a bunch of lesser ones.
Such as those for women. “I’m not [an] advocate of putting up a great flurry of plaques to women simply because they are women,” says Read. “But it will happen naturally. As time goes, more female plaques will appear.”
With just 13% of blue plaques celebrating women, taking Read’s approach will mean at least a century more of waiting to get anywhere near parity. In 2014, questions were asked about the make-up of the English Heritage decision-making panel after a bunch of white men “off the telly” were appointed, but the panel remains largely white and male.
So while the founder of Tesco, Jack Cohen, has a plaque, the important second world war intelligence officer Noor Inayat Khan, the pioneering dancer Isadora Duncan and the polymath Gertrude Bell have all been denied. In fact, so many women of merit are missing from the scheme that the author Allison Vale wrote a book about the notable absentees. As yet, there are no figures available for BAME, LGBT or disability representation, prompting independent campaigns to spring up in response to the omissions.
One of those is the Blue Plaque Rebellion, which I co-founded with the Women’s Sport Trust. It aims to recognise women in a particularly male dominated sector. There are just two blue plaques dedicated to sportswomen in London – and both are for white and able-bodied athletes. When it comes to statues, the situation is worse still; just 1% of all individual named sports statues in the UK are of sportswomen. None are of women of colour or disabled women.
It has been fascinating to discover how many brilliant sportswomen have been forgotten by history – from Madge Syers, of Kensington, who broke the gender barrier in ice skating, to Britain’s first black female footballer, Emma Clarke, first playing in London’s Crouch End, in 1895.
Yes, Charles Dickens really does not need yet another plaque put up to him, but there is also a very, very long list of women who deserve to have their very first.
