OPINION NATURE|Vol 460|9 July 2009

Clapham Common in south London. Cavend- Where they lived ish, the book reports, was “taciturn to the point of Trappism”, and communicated with his three Lived in London: Blue Plaques and the Certain figures, such as Thomas Henry Hux- servants by note. Stories Behind Them ley, were commemorated soon after they died. H. G. Wells, by contrast, had massive name Edited by Emily Cole Nowadays a blue plaque can only be awarded recognition but lack of approbation from sci- Yale University Press: 2009. 637 pp. at least 20 years after a person’s death. But the entists. By the time he moved into his house $85, £40 main criteria have remained the same. Indi- near Regent’s Park in 1936, Wells was one of viduals must be regarded as eminent by fellow the most famous writers in the world, partly When Einstein died in 1955, The Washington professionals and to have made “an impor- through his science fiction, such as The Time Post published a cartoon that has since become tant positive contribution to human welfare Machine, partly through best-selling non- famous. It shows Earth floating among the or happiness”. Place of birth or nationality fiction such as The Outline of History. Despite other planets and heavenly bodies, with a sign is irrelevant, but they must have resided in his claim that his house was “tumble-down” in tacked on to it bearing the words “ALBERT London for a significant period — in time a self-composed obituary, its luxuries included EINSTEIN LIVED HERE”. or in importance. Finally, either the “well- a four-poster bed and a private telephone Famous past residents of London are exchange. Wells never received the Fel- similarly recalled by a series of circular lowship of the Royal Society that he felt blue plaques that adorn their one-time was his due, and publicly referred to the mansions, houses and flats. The scheme fellows as “a lot of bastards”. has been imitated by major cities around Between these two poles, there is much the world. Their stories are told in a new scope for differences of opinion. Physicist complete illustrated guide, Lived in Lon- and inventor Charles Wheatstone, who don, which documents recipients street died in 1875, was initially rejected for a by street, square by square. Yet, less than blue plaque in 1906 despite his contri- HERITAGE KENDALL/ENGLISH D. a tenth are scientists. Of around 800 butions to telegraphy and the measure- people who are commemorated with ment of electrical resistance — using plaques, 58 are scientists, along with 44 the ‘Wheatstone bridge’. In the end, the medics, 17 engineers and 15 others asso- proposal was successful, revived not by a ciated with industry and invention. This scientist but by a member of the Interna- suggests some bias against recognizing tional Concertina Association, who drew scientists beyond a charmed circle of attention to Wheatstone’s invention of the celebrities — there are 194 plaques for instrument, which he patented in 1844. literary figures. Lived in London groups the plaques by Significantly, the first scientist to be borough or district, rather than by alpha- honoured was Benjamin Franklin, who betical order of recipient, and includes was a prominent statesman as well as a short biographies. These are a well- prominent scientist. During Franklin’s judged mixture of facts, achievements, sojourns in London, in 1757–62 and anecdotes and quotations, covering the 1764–75, accompanied by his son and person’s entire life, not just their time their two slaves, he was the agent of the in London. Of the ‘names’ with whom Pennsylvania Assembly, charged with I am most familiar, the nineteenth-cen- encouraging pro-American sympathies tury physicist, physician and polymath in the run-up to the Declaration of Inde- Thomas Young has an exemplary entry, pendence. but the book misses the fact that architect Isaac Newton, like Franklin, lived and archaeological decipherer Michael in the city for a long period but did Ventris deciphered Minoan Linear B in his best scientific work elsewhere. a flat in Highgate before he moved to the Michael Faraday, Christopher Wren and house in neighbouring Hampstead to Norman Lockyer (the founding editor of which his plaque is attached. Nature) spent almost all of their working Isaac Newton’s former Jermyn Street, London address. Einstein, alas, never lived in London, lives in London. Others, such as Charles despite making influential visits there. So Darwin and the Italian Guglielmo Marconi, informed passer-by” must recognize their there can be no plaque for him. But for others made breakthroughs there, but stayed only a name, or they must deserve national recog- who stayed longer in the city, the blue plaques short time. Darwin discovered the principle of nition. A varied list results. offer a simple but effective way of bringing past natural selection while living in Bloomsbury in Despite Henry Cavendish being little scientific achievements alive to inhabitants and 1838–42. known to the public, the house of this great visitors alike. ■ The criteria for choosing an individual have eighteenth-century experimental physicist Andrew Robinson is the author of The Last Man inevitably varied since the official system of is marked in Bloomsbury’s Bedford Square. Who Knew Everything, a biography of Thomas commemorative plaques, now run by English Here he established his collection of miner- Young, and The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, a Heritage, was started by the then Society of als and a semi-public library of some 12,000 biography of Michael Ventris. Arts (now the Royal Society of Arts) in 1866. volumes. His private laboratory was at e-mail: [email protected]

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