Image: Mary Seacole blue plaque

Blue Plaques Quiz (Part Two)

Test your knowledge of the blue plaques scheme with our 20 questions quiz. If you haven’t already, go back to our original blue plaques quiz after you’ve completed this one.

  • 3 Which was the first body to run the scheme when it launched?

    Answer: The Society of Arts (later the Royal Society of Arts)

    The scheme was founded in 1866 and is the oldest scheme of its kind in the world. The first two plaques were erected in 1867 – to Lord Byron, in a Cavendish Square (this house was demolished in 1889), and to Napoleon III. 

  • 7 When did English Heritage take over the scheme?

    Answer: 1986

    Before this, the scheme had been managed by the Greater London Council (GLC) between 1966 and 1985, when the GLC was abolished. During this time it put up 262 plaques, commemorating figures such as Sylvia Pankhurst, campaigner for women's rights, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, composer of The Song of Hiawatha, and Mary Seacole, the Jamaican nurse and heroine of the Crimean War.

  • 11 What is the musical significance of numbers 23 and 25 Brook Street?

    Answer: The adjacent addresses were home to Jimi Hendrix (number 23) and George Frideric Handel (number 25), both of whom have blue plaques.

    When asked about living next to Handel's old home, Hendrix is reported to have said, ‘To tell you the God's honest truth, I haven’t heard much of the fella's stuff.’

     

  • 12 Can you identify this tennis player, who has a plaque in East Sheen?

    Answer: Kitty Godfree

    The plaque to Kathleen 'Kitty' Godfree is at 55 York Avenue, East Sheen, where she lived from 1936 to 1992. She won Wimbledon twice (in 1924 and 1926) and won five medals over two Olympic Games. This record for the most number of Olympic medals won in tennis was only recently equalled by Venus Williams.

    12 kitty_GettyImages-2633135.jpg

  • 17 How many plaques that are part of the scheme are there in the City of London?

    Answer: One

    The terracotta plaque, commemorating Dr Samuel Johnson, was put up in 1876 by the Society of Arts in Gough Square, near Fleet Street. Three years after it was erected it was agreed that the Corporation of the City of London would take responsibility for commemorating historic sites within its ‘square mile’ and this agreement has stood ever since.

    17 CityLondon_GettyImages-1174407001.jpg

  • 19 Whose plaque, which was first erected in 1937 in Chalk Farm, was repeatedly vandalised?

    Answer: Karl Marx

    The first plaque to Marx was erected at 41 Maitland Park Road, his home from 1875. However, the plaque and its replacement were both vandalised soon after installation, and the owner of the house declined a third. The house was later demolished, and attention turned to 28 Dean Street, where Marx lived from 1851 until 1856. A new plaque was unveiled here in 1967.