The forum's ideas for new plaques include a maternity hospital on Aldersgate Street, Eleanor Karr and Benazir Bhutto, who lived in the Barbican in exile.
Just three of the Square Mile’s 140 or so blue plaques honour women, by the count of a Barbican neighbourhood group, which is pressing the City of London Corporation to add more.
The Barbican and Golden Lane Neighbourhood Forum has drawn up a proposal setting out its concerns about the existing collection, and it has put forward candidates for new plaques. The earliest plaque in the City commemorates the writer Dr Samuel Johnson.
The forum describes its three ideas for the Barbican and Golden Lane area as a starting point. One is London House on Aldersgate Street, where the first maternity hospital in the City was set up. Another is Eleanor Karr, who founded the Welcome Working Girls Institute and Restaurant.
The third is Benazir Bhutto, the only woman to have served as Pakistan’s prime minister. She lived in the Barbican during her exile.
According to the proposal, interest in the area’s past is rising and the new London Museum is likely to add to it. A forum spokeswoman said “at least 70 plaques to women are needed to level the scales”.
The corporation said its blue plaque scheme had recently been redesigned and that it wants nominations for underrepresented groups. A recent addition remembers Francis Barber, Britain’s first known black schoolteacher, who worked for Johnson as a servant and later became his heir.
The 2027 round will not take nominations until January. Brendan Barns, chair of the corporation’s Culture, Heritage and Libraries Committee, said inclusivity was a central aim of the revamped scheme. Nominations celebrating women and other underrepresented groups were encouraged, he said.
By the Barbican and Golden Lane Neighbourhood Forum's count, three of the roughly 140 plaques in the City honour women.
London House on Aldersgate Street, site of the City's first maternity hospital, as well as Eleanor Karr and Benazir Bhutto.
The 2027 round will not take nominations until January.
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