In seeking more women for London’s blue plaques, English Heritage is misunderstanding many women’s heritage (More women needed on London blue plaques, says English Heritage, 26 May). Way back in 1978 I wanted to study art. My father pointed out that there were no famous female artists. I used my degree dissertation to explore why.
We women were taught to take up little space, speak with quiet voices, clear away after ourselves and, above all, be modest. Our creativity and innovations were consequently small, easily packed away or disposed of. Our credit was shared, anonymous, gifted to, or stolen by others. In the rare case that a female artist or innovator emerged, there was always a self-effacing partner doing the childcare, cooking, organising and ego-stroking that individual success requires.
The achievements of the many men and women given blue plaques were only possible because of the devotion, services or servitude of others. We have come to like the idea of a hero and the exceptional leader. But it supports the idea that great achievements only result from solo actors or producers.
In balancing up the plaques, I would encourage English Heritage to rebalance our understanding of heritage with some plaques for those who cooperated and collaborated, those whose contribution, or life, was deemed unimportant or dispensable, and those who were resigned to anonymity. It is this heritage that paves the way for us to share the resources we have more equitably.
Erika Rushton
Liverpool
• Re English Heritage requesting more nominations for plaques to women, I know of three unsuccessful submissions to it of 20th-century women in Battersea – the Booker prize winner Penelope Fitzgerald, who will be commemorated with a Battersea Society plaque this year; Elsa Lanchester, the Hollywood actor; and Isabella Gilmore, whose brother William Morris is said to have remarked to her: “I preach socialism, you practice it.”
A Wandsworth council green plaque to the Diederichs Duval family of suffrage campaigners will be unveiled on 9 June. We can’t depend on English Heritage to commemorate unsung women.
Jeanne Rathbone
Battersea Society heritage committee
• It’s not only in London that blue plaques overlook women. In Norwich, our 12 to one bias inspired Rosie’s Plaques, a group of women driven to hang plaques celebrating significant but unrecognised women in the history of our fine city. Guerrilla-art blue plaques appeared unheralded around Norwich, raising awareness of the injustice and of what we were missing. One of the plaques reads: “Dedicated to the profane and opinionated women who gathered here.” Long may they gather and all power to those redressing the injustice in history written by men.
Steve Morphew
Norwich
• In 2017, Peterborough Civic Society installed 20 plaques, none of which celebrated women. We were acutely aware of this shortcoming so, in 2020, installed further plaques, including four women (Edith Cavell, Marjorie Pollard, Daphne Jackson and Annie Sage). This is still not enough and we have asked the public to submit further suggestions. To date we have received nominations for four men and one building.
Toby Wood
Vice-chair, Peterborough Civic Society
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