Honour for Tommy Cooper

Tommy Cooper is to be honoured with a blue plaque at his West London home.

The English Heritage marker will be installed the six-bedroom house at 51 Barrowgate Road, Chiswick, where the comedian lived with his wife and two children from 1955 until his death in 1984. 

It is one of a number of official plaques being erected by English Heritage on the 150th anniversary of the scheme.

Playwright Samuel Beckett, actress Ava Gardner, dancer  Margot Fonteyn cookery writer Elizabeth David, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury  and footballers Bobby Moore and Laurie Cunningham – the first black footballer to play for England – will also be honoured.

Professor Ronald Hutton, chair of the English Heritage blue plaques panel, said: 'Since 1866, these modest but distinctive blue roundels have reminded us of the people and places that made history.

And he called this latest list 'a roll-call that underlines the wide range of talent who over the centuries have made London their home'.

As part of the anniversary ceremony, English Heritage is also releasing a set of dinner plates replicating the plaque of Kenneth Williams along with Jimi Hendrix, Dame Agatha Christie, Christabel & Emmeline Pankhurst, Sir Alfred Hitchcock and Sigmund Freud.

Other organisations such as The Heritage Foundation also place blue plaques on buildings of interest, but the 900 English Heritage ones are considered the most prestigious.

Published: 25 Feb 2016