[title]
A new blue plaque has been unveiled in Hammersmith to commemorate the London home of Ellen and William Craft, American abolitionists who came to the UK in the 1800s after escaping slavery in the state of Georgia.
The Victorian house at 26 Cambridge Grove was where the pair settled in 1850, two years after they staged their escape, in which Ellen – who was the child of a mixed-race slave who had been raped by her white owner – disguised herself as a disabled white man with William pretending to be her servant as the pair travelled for medical treatment.
The pair left America when the fugitive slave bill was passed, which stated that so-called free states could no longer shelter former slaves. Instead they came to London by ship and became organisers in the Ladies’ London Emancipation Society, which was established by women’s rights activist Clementia Taylor.
Historian Dr Hannah-Rose Murray proposed the idea for a plaque to commemorate the Crafts. ‘Ellen and William Craft were courageous and heroic freedom fighters whose daring escape from US chattel slavery involved Ellen crossing racial, gender and class lines to perform as a white southern man,’ she said.
English Heritage started its blue plaque scheme in 1866 to pay tribute to notable people who lived in or stayed in London properties. However, a recent study by The Guardian found that only 2.1 percent of the plaques honour Black people.
Of the 1,160 names that feature on London’s 978 plaques 96 percent are white and only 4 percent from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background. The first to commemorate a non-white figure wasn’t unveiled until 1975, at the South Norwood home of composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
However, Anna Eavis, English Heritage’s curatorial director, has said that the organisation is committed to diversifying the scheme, with recent plaques unveiled for neurologist Dr JS Risien Russell and the civil engineer Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia.
Guess who else has just got a blue plaque? It’s Princess Di.