Six New Blue Plaques For Women In 2020

5 Mar 2020 12:09 PM

Barbara Hepworth and Noor Inayat Khan are among the women to be honoured with a blue plaque in 2020, with Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan who was commemorated yesterday.

Second World War spies, suffrage organisation headquarters and one of Britain’s most important 20th-century artists will be among six new blue plaques honouring women this year.

The first addition to the scheme this year was revealed yesterday and dedicated to botanist and leader of women in the armed forces, Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan.

Only 14% of the 950+ London blue plaques celebrate women. While this is still unacceptably low, English Heritage’s ongoing ‘plaques for women’ campaign has seen a dramatic rise in the number of public nominations for women since it launched in 2016.

For the first time, the English Heritage blue plaques panel is shortlisting more women than men this year – which reflects both the quality and the quantity of the new suggestions coming in.

Only once before has English Heritage unveiled as many as six plaques to women in a single year; and its predecessors in running the scheme never managed anything close to this figure. 

Click here for the full press release