Plaque

W.S. Gilbert - SW7

Erection date: 1929

Inscription

W.S. Gilbert, (1836-1911), dramatist, lived here.
LCC

Site: W.S. Gilbert - SW7 (1 memorial)

SW7, Harrington Gardens, 39

This house was designed for Gilbert by Ernest George and Harold Peto.

2018: The Telegraph included this house (in this area of astonishing architecture) in their Unsung buildings that bring Victorian London to life. They write: Gilbert "paid for it out of the profits of their light operetta Patience. ... five stately stories of mullioned windows and carved stone topped with an enormous stepped gable. Gilbert decorated the interior in the Aesthetic (or Artistic) style and filled it with exotic oriental objects, creating perhaps one of the last great hurrahs of the Aesthetic before the Arts and Crafts movement set in. Gilbert wrote the Mikado in his study here, inspired, it is said, by the clattering fall of a Japanese sword that hung above the study door. Note the stone galleon that sits at the very top of the stepped gable, a reference to Gilbert's alleged ancestor, the heroic Elizabethan sailor Sir Humphrey Gilbert."

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
W.S. Gilbert - SW7

Subjects commemorated i

W. S. Gilbert

Playwright, lyricist & poet. Born 17 Southampton Street as William Schwen...

Read More

This section lists the subjects who helped to create/erect the memorial on this page:
W.S. Gilbert - SW7

Created by i

London County Council

Prior to the LCC London matters were run by church parishes. The LCC was the ...

Read More

Nearby Memorials

Tachbrook - Abbots

Tachbrook - Abbots

SW1, Bessborough Street

Pulford Street and the Equitable Gas Works used to occupy this six acre site.  In the 1930s the Pulford Street Site Committee was respons...

1 subject commemorated
Manor House - Mare Street

Manor House - Mare Street

E8, Mare Street, 387

Difficult to photograph the whole building. We believe it extends across 7 window bays, our picture showing only the 5 left-most.

3 subjects commemorated
Balham Station bombing - 3

Balham Station bombing - 3

SW12, Balham High Road, Balham Underground Station

Plaque 1 incorrectly states that there were 64 people killed in this incident. The Wandsworth Guardian carries the story of how it was di...

4 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Field Marshal Gort

Field Marshal Gort

SW1, Belgrave Square, 34

Field Marshal Viscount Gort VC, 1886 - 1946, Commander in Chief at Dunkirk, lived here, 1920 - 1926. English Heritage

War served | WW1
1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
Animals War Memorial Dispensary - 2 stone plaques

Animals War Memorial Dispensary - 2 stone plaques

NW6, Cambridge Avenue, 10

This 19th century building was converted by the architect John Oliver Brook Hitch MC, into an animal dispensary. It was opened on 10 Nove...

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator