London's blue plaques tell the story of the people who shaped the city and the world, but for most of the scheme's history they have told a lopsided version of it. Only around 14% of London's blue plaques commemorate women, a gap that English Heritage has publicly acknowledged and now actively works to close by encouraging more nominations of women's homes. Yet the women who have been marked are extraordinary, a roll-call of scientists, writers, reformers, suffragists, actresses, and explorers whose plaques are scattered from Bloomsbury to Chelsea to the East End. This guide brings the best of London's women's blue plaques together in one place, grouped by the fields they transformed.
Seeking out these plaques is one of the most rewarding ways to walk London, because their stories run against the grain of the history you were taught. From the woman who wrote the first computer program to the first female MP to a wartime secret agent, London's blue plaques to women record lives of nerve and originality, often achieved against the odds. Here is where to find them, part of the wider blue plaque scheme that marks the capital's history house by house.
The Scientists and Pioneers
Some of the most important scientific work of the modern age was done by women whose plaques you can visit today. At 12 St James's Square, a plaque marks Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), the "pioneer of computing," whose notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine included what is now recognised as the first algorithm intended for a machine, making her arguably the first computer programmer, a century before the computer existed. Her full story is told in our guide to Ada Lovelace's London.
At Donovan Court on Drayton Gardens in Chelsea, a plaque records Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958), the chemist whose X-ray work on molecular structures, including DNA, was central to one of the greatest discoveries in the history of biology, though recognition came slowly and largely after her early death. And on Whitfield Street in Fitzrovia, a plaque marks the site connected to Marie Stopes (1880-1958), who opened Britain's first birth control clinic in 1921, a step that changed the lives of countless women and made her one of the most influential, and controversial, figures of her age.
Reformers, Suffragists, and Firsts
London's plaques record the women who fought to widen who counted as a full citizen. At 2 Gower Street in Bloomsbury, a plaque marks Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929), the leader of the constitutional women's suffrage movement, who "lived and died here" and spent a lifetime arguing, peacefully and relentlessly, for the vote. The more militant wing of that same struggle is told in our guide to Emmeline Pankhurst's London.
The breakthroughs those campaigns won are marked nearby. At 4 St James's Square, a plaque records Nancy Astor (1879-1964), the first woman to take her seat in Parliament, and at 17 Princelet Street in Spitalfields, a plaque marks Miriam Moses (1886-1965), the first woman Mayor of Stepney and a pioneering figure in East End public life. And in Soho, at 14 Soho Square, a plaque records Mary Seacole (1805-1881), the Jamaican-born nurse who funded her own passage to care for soldiers in the Crimean War when the authorities turned her away, a story told in full in our guide to Mary Seacole's London.
The Writers
Women have shaped English literature from its heart, and London's plaques mark where they lived and worked. At 24 Chester Square in Belgravia, a plaque records Mary Shelley (1797-1851), author of Frankenstein, the novel that arguably founded science fiction, explored further in our guide to Mary Shelley's London. At 29 Fitzroy Square, a plaque marks Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), the novelist and critic at the centre of the Bloomsbury Group, and at 4 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, a plaque records George Eliot (1819-1880), author of Middlemarch, who wrote under a man's name to be taken seriously.
The tradition runs on through the plaques. Jane Austen is commemorated at 23 Hans Place in Knightsbridge, where she stayed with her brother; the detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers at 24 Great James Street; and at 58 Doughty Street, a plaque marks the writers and reformers Vera Brittain (1893-1970) and Winifred Holtby (1898-1935), whose friendship and pacifism shaped a generation. At 72 Cadogan Square, a plaque records the pioneering war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998). Older still, at 9 Aldgate High Street, a plaque marks the site where in 1773 a volume of poems by Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) was published, the first book by an African American woman to appear in print in English, by a writer who had been enslaved as a child.
The Stage, the Arts, and Society
London's plaques also celebrate the women who defined its cultural life. At 54 Eaton Square in Belgravia, a plaque records Vivien Leigh (1913-1967), the actress immortalised as Scarlett O'Hara, and at 109 Ebury Street, one marks Dame Edith Evans (1888-1976), one of the greatest stage actresses of the century. At 8 Wilton Place, a plaque records Lillie Langtry (1852-1929), the actress and celebrated beauty of late-Victorian society.
The twentieth century brought new kinds of influence. At 138a King's Road in Chelsea, a plaque marks where Dame Mary Quant opened her boutique Bazaar in 1955, launching a fashion revolution that helped define the look of the 1960s. At 10 Gower Street, a plaque records Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938), the literary hostess and patron whose salons drew the leading artists and writers of her day. And on Pall Mall, a plaque recalls Nell Gwynne, the Restoration actress and royal favourite whose wit and charm made her one of the most famous women of the seventeenth century.
Explorers, Agents, and Makers
Finally, London's plaques mark women whose courage took very different forms. At 95 Sloane Street, a plaque records Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), the traveller, archaeologist, and diplomat whose journeys across Arabia and deep knowledge of the region shaped the modern Middle East. At 4 Taviton Street in Bloomsbury, a plaque marks Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944), the wartime secret agent, code-named Madeleine, who worked as a radio operator for the resistance in occupied France and was killed by the Nazis, awarded the George Cross for her extraordinary bravery.
And in the workshops of the East End, at 2 Princelet Street in Spitalfields, a plaque records Anna Maria Garthwaite (1690-1763), the celebrated designer of Spitalfields silks, a rare example of a woman who achieved fame and independence in the Georgian design trade. Together these plaques trace a version of London's history that runs from a seventeenth-century actress to a twentieth-century spy, all of it easy to miss and all of it worth seeking out.
Why So Few, and How the Gap Is Closing
The 14% figure has a straightforward explanation and a more hopeful one. The straightforward reason is that the blue plaque scheme reflects the history it was built on: for most of the period the plaques commemorate, women were systematically shut out of the public life, the professions, and the recognition that tends to earn a person a plaque. Fewer women were allowed to become the famous scientists, politicians, and public figures the early scheme favoured, and those who did achieve great things were more easily forgotten. The plaques record not just who was remarkable, but who history chose to remember, and that choice was rarely even-handed.
The more hopeful part is that the imbalance is now openly recognised and actively addressed. Anyone can nominate a figure for a blue plaque, and English Heritage has repeatedly appealed for more nominations of women, since the shortlist can only reflect the names the public puts forward. The criteria are the same for everyone: the person must have been dead for at least twenty years, and a building genuinely associated with them must survive. In recent years a steady stream of new plaques to women has gone up, from suffragists to scientists to pioneers of the arts, slowly rebalancing a record that was skewed from the start. If there is a woman whose London home you think deserves marking, the nomination is open to you.
Finding London's Women's Blue Plaques
The plaques in this guide are spread across the city, clustered thickest in Bloomsbury, Chelsea, Belgravia, and St James's, with others out in Spitalfields and Soho. Many sit within a short walk of one another, so an afternoon in a single quarter will often take in several: Bloomsbury alone holds Millicent Fawcett, Noor Inayat Khan, and Ottoline Morrell, while Chelsea gathers Rosalind Franklin, George Eliot, and Mary Quant.
If you want to find them as you walk, and keep a record of the ones you have visited, Legacy maps every blue plaque in London, including the women's plaques in this guide, turning a day of exploring into a collection you build over time. The 14% figure is a reminder of how much of women's history has gone unmarked, but the plaques that do exist are among the most inspiring the city has, and seeking them out is a small way of giving these remarkable women the attention their stories have always deserved.