The Writing on the Wall

100 Iconic Blue Plaques Commemorating Britain’s History

Mike Read

The Writing on the Wall

Mike Read

Distributed for Unicorn Publishing Group

160 pages | 100 color plates | 5 x 7 | © 2018
Cloth $22.95 ISBN: 9781911604266 Published August 2018 For Sale in USA and Canada Only

A blue plaque is a recognized symbol of the United Kingdom’s national heritage; a living footprint of history, with each one serving as a permanent reminder of an important contribution to the history of the country. The blue plaques commemorate notable, influential, and successful people from all walks of life. They are erected in the present to celebrate the past and inspire the future.
 
This book covers one hundred blue plaques and shares the people and stories behind them, from across the United Kingdom, each linking, through a common denominator, to the next. From David Bowie to William Shakespeare, these plaques run the gamut, commemorating kings, actors, singers, explorers, footballers, cricketers, writers, inventors, scientists, politicians, musicians, reformers, broadcasters, songwriters, comedians, pioneers, artists, soldiers, athletes, dancers, activists, poets, and educators. From Lennon and McCartney to the victims of Jack the Ripper, this is an eclectic representation of British life, as told through blue plaques, from the 1500s to the present day, and accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations and a foreword by Earl Spencer.

Contents

CONTENTS

Introduction

David Bowie

Edward Smith

Len Hutton

Lord’s Cricket Ground

Buddy Holly & The Crickets

Jimmy Kennedy

Charles Laughton

William Bligh

Ernest Shackleton

P. G. Wodehouse

Percy Jeeves

Siegfried Sassoon

Rupert Brooke

Virginia Woolf

Strawberry Studios

John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Ian Fleming

Noël Coward

Paddington Bear

Mary Tourtel

Alfred Bestall

Earl Mountbatten of Burma

Winston Churchill

Nancy Aster

George Bernard Shaw

Alexander Fleming

John Betjeman

 Nick Drake

Sandy Denny

Richard III

Laurence Oliver

Vivien Leigh

Jerry Lordan

Bruce Welch & Brian Bennett

The Brontës

Annie Besant

 William Ewart Gladstone

Charles Dickens

John Mills

Robin Gibb & The Bee Gees

Alan Freeman

Peter Cushing

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Oscar Wilde

Leslie Haden-Guest

Clement Attlee

Duncan Edwards

Robert Baden-Powell

Paul Robeson

Jerome Kern

Oliver Cromwell

Samuel Pepys

Benny Hill

Charlie Chaplin

Lawrence Wright

Amy Johnson

Billy Butlin

Rick Parfitt & Status Quo

L. S. Lowry

Kenny Davenport

Mary Ann Nichols, Catherine Eddowes & Elizabeth Stride

Bud Flanagan

Arthur Lowe

The Drill Hall, Ilkley

George Formby

Henry Irving

Bram Stoker

108 Mary Shelley

Kenneth Williams

Tony Hancock

J. R. R. Tolkien

Roger Bannister

James Smithson

Danny Blanchflower

Brian Clough

Fred Astaire

J. M. Barrie

John Howard

The Short Brothers

Barnes Wallis

Eric Coates

John Reith

John Logie Baird

Claudia Jones

Dylan Thomas

Frédéric Chopin

William Penn

Charles II

Nell Gywnne

Enid Bagnold

Edith Cavell

Henry Francis Lyte

The Football Association

Bobby Moore

Thomas Barnardo

Octavia Hill

John F. Kennedy

John Harvard

William Shakespeare

About the Author

Acknowledgements

For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://www.press.uchicago.edu
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History: General History

Reference and Bibliography

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Chicago Manual of Style

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