Laurence Olivier leads new wave of London blue plaques

Sir Laurence Olivier is set to join London’s most exclusive open-air club, as English Heritage announces nine new blue plaques celebrating figures who helped shape the capital’s cultural, political and intellectual life.

The legendary actor, one of the towering greats of stage and screen, leads an eclectic roll call that spans wartime strategy, radical journalism, anti-racism activism and universe-altering science. The new plaques will mark buildings across the city where the honourees once lived or worked, quietly weaving their stories back into London’s streets.

Also joining Olivier are pioneering Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and filmmaker Jill Craigie, whose socially driven films Out of Chaos and Blue Scar tackled politics and inequality head-on. Brigadier Dudley Clarke, a Second World War military strategist known for his deceptive brilliance, is also recognised, alongside journalist and activist Duse Mohamed Ali.

Campaigning against racism and inequality is a thread that runs through several of the new plaques. Anti-racism activist Kamal Chunchie is honoured for his work supporting Black and Asian communities in London, while social reformer Gertrude Tuckwell is recognised for improving conditions for working women.

The list also includes astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, whose discoveries changed our understanding of what stars are made of, while blazing a trail for women in science, and Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, celebrated for his writings on European culture and the human cost of war.

English Heritage’s curatorial director Matt Thompson said the new plaques represent “an astonishing range of achievement”, adding that each figure helped make London “a place of ideas, creativity and reform”.

As ever, the Blue Plaque scheme follows strict rules. Subjects must have been dead for at least 20 years, have made an exceptional contribution in their field and have a surviving London building with a strong connection to their life. Public nominations drive the process, meaning the next name on a blue circle could come from anyone.

Once installed, the plaques will do what they do best: quietly reminding passers-by that some of history’s biggest ideas were born behind ordinary-looking doors.

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