PETERBOROUGH BLUE PLAQUES an Updated Version Produced by Peterborough Civic Society
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PETERBOROUGH BLUE PLAQUES An updated version produced by Peterborough Civic Society Visit peterboroughcivicsociety.org.uk ‘Seeking the best for a fine city’ 02 Blue plaques in & around Peterborough City Centre 18 15 These plaques commemorate people and 01 places in Peterborough city centre and beyond. 19 20 For more information about the history 05 03 associated with each plaque please visit 14 the Peterborough Civic Society website. 22 21 06 Plaques Page 04 01. The King’s School 01 02. Sage Family 02 30 03. Marjorie Pollard 03 31 04. Great Barn 03 05. Daphne Jackson 04 28 07 06. John Thompson Jnr. 05 07. Theatre Royal 06 29 08. Embassy Theatre 06 09 09. Public Library 07 10. Peterborough County Court 07 08 11. Thomas James Walker 08 12 12. Shopping Arcade 09 11 10 13. Parish Burial Ground 09 14. Deacon’s School 10 15. Cumbergate 10 16. Memorial Hospital 11 16 13 25 17. Arthur James Robertson 12 17 18. John Addy 12 19. The Guildhall 13 23 26 20. WW1 Recruitment Oice 14 31 21. Abbot’s Gaol & King’s Lodging 14 22. St Thomas Becket 15 24 23. Simon Gunton 16 24. Almoner’s Hall 16 25. John Fletcher 17 27 26. Laurel Court/ Edith Cavell 18 27. Lido 19 28. Town Hall 19 29. Angel Inn 20 32 33 30. Thomas Hake 20 31. Peterborough Museum 21 Plaque 36, London 32. The Customs House 22 Brick Company, 36 33. Town Bridge 22 is at the junction of 34. East Station 23 London Road with 35. Engine Shed 23 St Margaret’s Road 34 35 36. London Brick Company 24 (PE2 9DS) 02 John and Annie Sage The Sage family lived in Gladstone Street where Stella Anne (born 1891); George John (born they kept a small bakery and shop. They were 1892); Douglas Bullen (born 1894); Frederick originally from Hackney in London and had (born 1895); Dorothy Florence (born 1897); moved to Peterborough circa 1906/7 after Elizabeth Ada (born 1901); Constance Gladys running a pub in King’s Lynn for two years. (born 1904) and Thomas Henry (born 1907) and their parents were never seen again. 01 John decided to try his luck in the USA where he The King’s School put a deposit on a farm in Jacksonville, Florida. He then returned to England to collect his The King’s (The Cathedral) School was Until 1976 the School was a grammar school family, many of whom were not keen to move. established by King Henry VIII in 1541 as part for around 450 boys. It then became a The family was due to travel on the Philadelphia, of the Cathedral foundation for the education coeducational Church of England a ship which sailed out of Liverpool, but this of “twenty poor boys”. comprehensive school. voyage was cancelled due to a coal strike. Instead the family embarked on the Titanic 02 It is one of seven King’s Schools endowed The larger image above is taken from a postcard which hit an iceberg and sank on during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. circa 1906 showing the school in its current 14 April 1912. The School moved from the Minster Park Road location. The smaller image is of the Precincts to its current site in Park Road in school’s previous location in Minster Precincts. The only body to be recovered 1885 and continues to maintain close links was that of 13-year-old Will. with Peterborough Cathedral including educating boy and girl choristers. 01 peterboroughcivicsociety.org.uk Peterborough Blue Plaques 03 Marjorie Pollard Marjorie Pollard, born in 1899, was educated in England’s 20-0 win over Wales in 1926 and at the County Grammar School for Girls, all the goals in the 8-0 defeat of Germany. Peterborough. She played hockey for She later became acting president of the All- Peterborough and Northamptonshire and England Women’s Hockey Association and was later became one of England’s finest hockey a founding member of the England Women’s players with caps from 1921 to 1937. She was a Cricket Association. prolific goal scorer, famously scoring 13 goals 05 Daphne Jackson Daphne Jackson was born in 1936 in Willesden and the National Radiological Protection Board. Avenue and educated at the County Grammar She also became active in encouraging women School for Girls and at Imperial College, London. into science and engineering and launched a 04 In her academic career she specialised in the Women Returners Fellowship scheme to assist fundamental nature of nuclear reactions and women to resume their careers following later in the applications of nuclear physics a break. She died in 1991 but the Daphne Great Barn especially to medicine. As professor of physics Jackson Trust continues her work through its at the University of Surrey she published widely, Fellowships for individuals returning to research Rothesay Villas, built 1892/3, stands near the Had Boroughbury Barn survived it would served on many national scientiic bodies STEM (science, technology, engineering and site of the Boroughbury Barn, the great barn have ranked with the greatest aisled barns including the boards of The Science mathematics), social sciences and related of the Abbot of Peterborough’s manorial of England. The photograph depicts the and Engineering Research Council disciplines. grange; in eect his home farm. The extensive magnificent aisled timber-framed interior with abbey estates were divided into manors for eight bays. It was demolished in 1892 by local agricultural production and management. entrepreneur James McCullum Craig. 03 peterboroughcivicsociety.org.uk Peterborough Blue Plaques 04 07 06 John Theatre Royal Originally on this site stood an enormous hall requiring a large hall (when it was called the Thompson Jnr. used as an indoor roller skating rink. To its Fitzwilliam Hall) and theatrical performances. south, where the current Central Library is, was The theatre architect John Priestley Briggs The Lindens, built c.1865, was the home of an outdoor rink. These rinks opened in April remodelled the building in 1899 and 1913. It master-builder John Thompson Jnr. 1877, but the popularity of roller skating waned, was known as The Grand (1916-19) and then the Thompson and Sons’ first major project was and the indoor rink began to stage public events Theatre Royal & Empire until it closed in 1959. the re-ordering Peterborough Cathedral’s Choir in the 1820’s followed by work to the Choir of Westminster Abbey. John Thompson Snr. died in 1853, John Jnr. taking over full control of the firm. From then on the operation burgeoned and the watchword, when architect and client faced structural challenge, became “Get Thompson of Peterborough”. Major Cathedral restoration projects followed at Hereford, Chester, Ripon, Lichfield, Bangor and Peterborough and at many major parish churches. New building work included the chapel of Balliol College, Oxford (architect William Butterfield), Glasgow University 08 (Sir G.G. Scott) and W.H. Crossland’s Royal Holloway College. John Thompson Jnr. died in 1898 having been Embassy an Alderman of the city and twice its Mayor. The firm continued until it was forced into Theatre voluntary liquidation in 1931 whilst The main road north out of Peterborough constructing Peterborough Town Hall. towards Lincoln (the only direction in which a David Evelyn Nye, a cinema architect, designed of the building with a wide fan-shaped the Embassy. It was the only theatre he auditorium behind. Fourteen dressing rooms In 1920 The Lindens was bought by Alfred constrained town centre could expand) began to be developed from the mid-19th century designed and had its first performance in occupied six floors at the apex of the building. John Paten, a prominent local wine and spirit November 1937. Its original capacity was 1484 The Beatles played here twice in the 1960s. The merchant and hotelier. Used as a military with a new church - St Mark’s - and the distinctive group of substantial semi- seats in stalls, balcony and circle. The site theatre closed in 1965 and had a short life as a hospital during World War 2, it was bequeathed required that the stage occupied the corner three-screen cinema in the 1980s. by him to the City in 1953. detached brick villas opposite. 05 peterboroughcivicsociety.org.uk Peterborough Blue Plaques 06 09 Public Library This was the first purpose-built public library The Library was designed by Hall & Phillips and the second library to serve the city. It of London and the building contract awarded replaced a library which had been part of the to Cracknells Builders. The library served the Fitzwilliam Hall/Theatre Royal and fronted Park public here until replaced by the new Central Road. This shows the oicial opening on 29 May Library opened by HRH the Duke of 1906 by Andrew Carnegie, the industrialist and Gloucester in 1990. philanthropist who had provided the funding. 11 Thomas James Walker Dr Thomas James Walker, a distinguished As an antiquarian he undertook local medical practitioner and antiquarian, was exploration and wrote the deinitive history of born in a house on this site in 1835. the Napoleonic POW Camp at Norman Cross. 10 He attended King’s School and trained He served in the 6th Northamptonshire Rile as a doctor at universities in Edinburgh, Volunteer Corps for 36 years, retiring as London and Vienna. lieutenant-colonel. Peterborough On returning to Peterborough in 1860 he He championed various local causes, including entered general practice with his father in this a public library, and was invested with the building. He was also a surgeon specialising in Freedom of the City of Peterborough on his County Court diseases of the throat and larynx, and honorary 80th birthday in 1915.