Take the soho Blue Plaque Tour!

Having traipsed the well-trodden streets and alleyways of

Soho for many years now, it came as quite a surprise to me exactly how much of

the history of Soho can be discovered from the inconspicuous, blue plaques that

feature on fair number of the buildings in this famed square mile. Once I had

spotted the first, it seemed I couldn’t help but spot others, each such varied

and diverse glimpses into Soho’s fascinating past.  Here are just a few that I’ve spotted over

the years.

Mary Seacole

14 Soho Square

Mary Seacole was a Jamaican nurse best known for her involvement in the Crimean War,

where she set up and operated boarding houses in Panama and Crimea to treat the

sick. Seacole was taught herbal remedies and folk medicine by her mother, who

kept a boarding house for disabled European soldiers and sailors.

According to English Heritage, this address is the only known surviving

residence of Seacole in London.  While living on the upper floor of 14

Soho Square, Seacole began writing her autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of

Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, and it is thought that she was still living here at

the time of its publication in July 1857. 

 

Karl Marx

28 Dean Street

Karl Marx was a German philosopher,

political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist,

communist,

and revolutionary,

whose writings and ideas are widely considered to be the foundation of modern communism.

Marx first arrived in England in 1849 and moved to this address in early 1851.

For a short time Marx, his wife Jenny, their maid Lenchen and their five

children shared some rooms with Heinrich Bauer at 64 Dean Street and although

money was scare, Marx was able to earn a little by writing for the New York Tribune. The rooms at 28 Dean Street were rented by

Marx at £22 a year, which he himself described as a ‘hovel’.  Whilst living in Dean Street, Marx also gave

lectures in a room above the Red Lion pub on Great Windmill Street.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

20 Frith Street

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lodged with his family and corset maker, Thomas

Williamson, at this site, once known as 15 Thrift Street for the period between

1764 to 1765. Whilst here he wrote his first two symphonies and regularly

performed to admiring audiences. The original building was demolished and

rebuilt in 1858.

Giovanni

Antonio Canal

41 Beak Street

Better known as Canaletto,

Giovanni Antonio Canal  was a Venetian painter famous for his

landscapes, or vedute,

of Venice and was also an important printmaker

in etching.

Canaletto moved to London in 1746, in order to be better placed for

commissions that flooded in from England. It was during these London years that

Canaletto lodged with a cabinet-maker named Wiggins at what is now 41 Beak

Street.

John Logie Baird

22 Frith Street

John Logie Baird was a Scottish engineer and inventor of the world's first working television

system, also the world's first fully electronic colour

television broadcast. It was on the 2nd of October 1925 that

he finally succeeded in transmitting full television in his small attic

laboratory on 22 Frith Street. The first human ever to be televised

in a full tonal range was a rather startled office boy, William Edward Taynton,

who the inventor had snatched from the streets outside.

Dr John Snow

53 Frith Street

Doctor John Snow was a British physician and a leader in the adoption of

anaesthesia

and medical hygiene.

He is considered to be one of the fathers of epidemiology,

because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, England,

in 1854. A water pump still stands in Broadwick Street, bearing testament

to Snow’s efforts in identifying the source of the 1854 epidemic and

highlighting the dangers if not removed from public supply.