One might be forgiven for assuming that an inordinate number of famous faces once lived in Walthamstow. On almost every street in this east London neighbourhood a blue plaque can be found adorning a window, or displayed on the shop front of a local business. While there are indeed officially sanctioned commemorations to esteemed residents such as William Morris and Harry Beck (who designed the London Underground map), a second glance at these particular stickered roundels reveals the lives of much more ordinary folk. You will spot tea tasters and eel- shop keepers, fancy pickle fillers and ostrich-feather curlers, butter boys, banknote engravers, matrons, bakers and barmaids; all of them reveal a town that has evolved from rural outpost to city enclave. My own home was once the residence of Winifred Ada Pearcey, a ‘xylonite bristle dresser’ who presumably spent her days attending to celluloid hairbrushes made at a local plastics factory.
The idea of commemorating everyday residents – and delighting in the enormous array of very particular professions that once filled the census – is the work of Danny Coope, an illustrator and designer who called Walthamstow home for almost two decades before moving to the Sussex seaside in 2017. What began as a personal project researching family ancestry turned into a comprehensive catalogue of former occupants at his E17 address. ‘I’d soon created a list of residents dating back to 1851, and before I knew it, I’d done our neighbours’ house and quite quickly every other house on the street.’
He decided to share his findings as part of the Walthamstow Art Trail in 2011, designing plaques based on the famed English Heritage roundels that neighbours could display from the windows of their Victorian terraces. This was the beginning of ‘The Street of Blue Plaques’, a passion project turned business that has stretched beyond the London boroughs and across the country, from Liverpool to the Isle of Wight. Interested parties can now purchase a vinyl sticker or framed print celebrating a former resident, which features a few choice details about their life. While Coope was originally slightly worried that English Heritage might take offence to his homage, he was pleasantly surprised when a representative visited the Walthamstow trail and commended his work. In fact, numerous organisations across the country celebrate local individuals through distinctive plates, from councils to heritage societies, all of which have their own special designs.
The success of the grassroots project testifies to the power of quotidian social history, not to mention neighbourhood pride. Coope is hopeful his plaques will encourage passers-by to go down the rabbit hole and learn more about life in their locality. ‘I want to put questions in people’s minds, so then they might go off and research a profession or cottage industry in the area,’ he says, adding: ‘it brings neighbours together too, it’s a point of conversation and shared interest.’
Despite this emphasis on the local, international threads are often woven into the tapestry, as was the case in one Coope’s earliest discoveries, celebrated during that first art trail. As he explains: ‘A couple visiting from Australia just so happened to walk up the street to see where an ancestor of theirs had lived. To everyone’s amazement I’d done a blue plaque for him, a dairy keeper, who had been found guilty of the crime of watering down milk and was consequently transported to Australia.’
Such coincidences delight Coope, who now has an illustrious roster of defunct professions, as well as nods to influential individuals who probably should have an official plaque too. These include Dr Alice Vickery, the first British woman to qualify as a chemist and pharmacist, and a member of the Women’s Freedom League. She was a pioneer in birth-control advice among the poor of south London (she lived in Dulwich), and while her son is recognised with an English Heritage plaque for founding the Family Planning Association, her work is not acknowledged. ‘The homeowner and I both wanted to nominate her for a genuine blue plaque,’ says Coope – ‘that went to the committee in December 2023, but a decision hasn’t yet been announced.’
In other instances, he has also been keen to recognise the legacies of women who performed ‘unpaid house duties’ (as they are described in the 1939 register), alluding to, of course, the often under-appreciated role of wife and mother. For Coope, remembering these individuals is just as significant as those with more remarkable-sounding occupations.
‘I feel honoured to be drawing attention to a snapshot in people’s lives, of people who slept under the same roof as us and trod the same floorboards, many years ago,’ he says. ‘I’m remembering, in my small way, a stranger’s existence that might otherwise never be thought of again.’
For more information, visit streetofblueplaques.co.uk
