Introduction
The BMHS has been erecting Blue Plaques in memory of music hall & variety performers since 1965 when we facilitated a plaque on the London home of Albert Chevalier. We organised more plaques in the early years of the BMHS and then the impetus died down but it has picked up again in recent years.
The list to date is:
- Albert Chevalier (1965) GLC – 17 St Ann’s Villas, Notting Hill, London W11
- Little Tich (Harry Relph) (1969) GLC – 93 Shirehall Park, Hendon, London NW4
- George Leybourne (1970) GLC – 136 Englefield Road, London N1
- Marie Lloyd (1977) GLC – 55 Graham Road, London E8
- Gus Elen (1979) GLC – 3 Thurleigh Avenue, London SW2
- Max Miller (1980) – 25 Burlington Gardens, Brighton
- Bud Flanagan (1996) GLC – 12 Hanbury Street, London E1
- Sandy Powell (2015) – 11 Elms Avenue, Eastbourne
- Ronnie Ronalde (2021) – 126 Downham Road, London N1 3HJ
- Fred Barnes (2021) – 22 Clifton Villas, London W9
- Victoria Monks (2024) – 24 Elizabeth Street, Blackpool
- James Corrigan, Batley Variety Club (2024) – 260 Bradford Road, Batley, West Yorkshire
- Max Miller (2025) – 25 Burlington Gardens, Brighton (replacing 1980 plaque)
- Next proposed plaque: on the site of Springfield Music Hall, Dundee (to be unveiled in 2027)
At the time of the early London plaques organised by the BMHS the only way to obtain a plaque was through the scheme run by the Greater London Council (‘GLC’). This scheme has been run by English Heritage since 1986. This explains why the BMHS name does not appear on those early plaques even though we did much of the organisation towards them. In recent years, all of the BMHS plaques have been made by Leander Architectural.
The BMHS will not undertake to unveil more than one plaque per year. They cost the BMHS approximately £1,000 per plaque so each nomination is carefully considered. We welcome proposals for plaques outside of London as well as within.
All of the BMHS plaques are organised by volunteers – whether they be members of the BMHS or of our committee. If you wish to propose a plaque, please be aware that you will be expected to assist in obtaining the necessary permissions (building owner consent, local council approval etc.).
We receive many requests to organise blue plaques so we thought it helpful to set out some guidelines, some of them adopted from the English Heritage Blue Plaque scheme.
Guidelines
- The proposed recipient must have died at least 20 years ago.
- We will only erect a plaque if there is a surviving building closely associated with the person in question. ‘Closely associated’ means birthplace, residence or death location.
- Nominations to commemorate buildings that have historical significance for an event, or a group of individuals, will be considered.
- The person nominated must have had significant standing within the music hall and variety world. There were many thousands of music hall and variety artistes working on the Halls during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we cannot commemorate them all with a plaque.
- Your nomination will be considered by the BMHS Committee. If accepted you will work in consultation with the BMHS Committee to organise the plaque.
- We will only erect one plaque per person, so start by checking if the person hasn’t already been commemorated elsewhere in the UK. We will not consider proposals for plaques for Charlie Chaplin or Marie Lloyd as these two individuals are already well represented by plaques.
- Please provide as much information as you can in support of the nomination – dates they lived at the property, evidence of residency at the property and any interesting details about the person’s links to a particular building. It is helpful to have as much information as possible from the outset.
- Submit your proposal to contact@britishmusichallsociety.com.
