Indian ayahs or nursemaids who were left stranded by the British families who brought them along would find their way to the Ayahs’ Home in the Hackney area of east London.

Now, the English Heritage charity society will honour the grand old building, which housed many maids from India and other British colonies in South and South-East Asia, with its Blue Plaque.

The Blue Plaque scheme, run by the English Heritage charity, honours the historic significance of particular buildings across London.

“The Ayahs’ Home, which dates back to 1900-1921, provided safety and shelter to the many women who arrived in London with British families only to find that their employers did not honour the promise of a return journey, or offer the means to survive in the interim,” English Heritage notes.

“The Ayahs, thus abandoned, were often forced into common lodging houses or the workhouse,” it said.

The home’s Blue Plaque, part of the charity’s 2022 cohort, forms part of an effort to celebrate women’s experiences in London by English Heritage, with the London home of British Indian spy Noor Inayat Khan among another recent one to be honoured.:

History of  Blue Plaque
The idea behind placing commemorative plaques on historically significant buildings was first proposed by British statesman and liberal politician William Ewart in 1863 in front of the House of Commons.
While the government rejected the idea, it was taken up by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

Ewart’s idea behind this gesture was simple: “the places which had been the residences of the ornaments of their history could not but be precious to all thinking Englishmen”.

The commemorative plaques were meant to honour important people and organisations who had lived or worked out of London buildings.

In 1867, the first Blue Plaque was placed at 24 Holles Street, Cavendish Square - the birthplace of poet Lord Byron.

However, the place was demolished, leaving the blue plaque at Napoleon III’s house on King’s Street in Westminster as the oldest such plaque.

As per the Indian Express, managing the Blue Plaque scheme for 35 years, the RSA commemorated 35 people including poet John Keats, novelist William Makepeace Thackeray and the Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke.

The scheme was then taken over by the London County Council {LCC}, which changed the selection criteria.

While the RSA sought people who were connected with historical events, the LCC focused on honouring famous Londoners and visitors to London.

In 1965 the LCC was abolished and its place Greater London Council {GLC} took over the Blue Plaque scheme. It further expanded the terms and locations of the plaques.

Under the GLC, the criteria for a plaque became more populist as the honour was bestowed upon musicians, activists, and medical practitioners. This was also the time when buildings associated with historical events started getting honoured with the Blue Plaque.

The English Heritage charity took over the scheme in 1986.

It has since honoured a diverse range of personalities including guitarist and singer Jimi Hendrix, actor Kenneth Williams, writer H G Wells and Dame Maud McCarthy, a senior nurse in World War I.

In the last more than 150 years, more than 900 buildings in London have received the Blue Plaque.

Indians who received Blue Plaque

Before the Ayahs’ Home, the Blue Plaque has been erected on houses and places associated with Noor Inayat Khan, Mahatma Gandhi, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, BR Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, VK Menon, Sri Aurobindo, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Rabindranath Tagore, Lokmanya Tilak, and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel among others.

In 2020, World War II spy Noor Inayat Khan became the first woman of Indian origin to be commemorated by the Blue Plaque. Khan lived at a house in Taviton Street, Bloomsbury in London for some time.

Two plaques at two different buildings commemorate Mahatma Gandhi. One was erected in 1954 at Kingsley Hall, while the other in 1986 at Barons Court in London.

In 2007, the plaque was erected at 49 St Stephen’s Avenue, Shepherd's Bush in London to commemorate spiritual leader and poet Sri Aurobindo, who had lived there for three years as a teenager from 1884 until 1887.

A plaque honouring India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was erected in 1989 at 60 Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill in London where he had stayed 1910 and 1912.

With inputs from agencies

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