Person    | Male  Born 24/4/1815  Died 6/12/1882

Anthony Trollope

Author of over 50 delightful novels. Born at 16 Keppel Street. Worked for the GPO (General Post Office) 1834 - 59 and introduced the free-standing postbox ('pillar box') to the UK, an idea stolen from France.

His family left Keppel Street when Anthony was still an infant but he perhaps had fond memories since in the 1861 'Orley Farm' he has one of his characters say to her husband, who has been so successful that the couple are now living in grand Harley Street: "Oh, Tom, I wonder whether you ever think of the old days when we used to be so happy in Keppel Street!" And in the 1874 'Lady Anna' he moves Anna and her mother into a house in Keppel Street. It is a novel about the nuances of rank and Keppel Street must have suggested to Trollope exactly the right level in the social hierarchy for this couple. Initially they occupy just the first and second floors but on acquiring some money they take over the ground floor as well. And (spoiler alert) it is in the ground floor parlour, actually in the parlour doorway, that an attempted murder takes place. 

Died in a nursing home at 34 Welbeck Street following a stroke while visiting relatives. We've read that the stroke was a result of excessive laughter brought on by reading a now forgotten Victorian novel, 'Vice Versa'. Can it really have been that funny? Must get a copy.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Anthony Trollope

Commemorated ati

Anthony Trollope

L.C.C. Anthony Trollope (1851 - 1882), novelist, lived here.

Read More

Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Fleet Street

5 similar plaques have been erected.

Read More

Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Pall Mall

5 similar plaques have been erected.

Read More

Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Piccadilly

This plaque commemorates the bicentenary of the birth of Anthony Trollope (18...

Read More

Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Rutland Gate

5 similar plaques have been erected.

Read More

Show all 8

Other Subjects

James Anthony Froude

James Anthony Froude

Historian. novelist and biographer. Born at Dartington Rectory, Devon. He intended to become a clergyman, but his doubts expressed in his novel 'The Nemesis of Faith' changed his mind and he turned...

Person, History, Literature

1 memorial
Marshal Ferdinand Foch

Marshal Ferdinand Foch

Soldier and writer. Born in Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France. He enlisted in the French army in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war. During the First World War he distinguished himself at the battle...

Person, Armed Forces, Literature, France

1 memorial
Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake

Artist and writer. Mervyn Laurence Peake was born on 9 July 1911 in Kuling, Dehua, Fujian, China, the younger child of Ernest Cromwell Peake (1874-1950) and Amanda Elizabeth Ann Peake née Powell (...

Person, Art, Emergency Services, Literature, Seriously Famous, Channel Islands, China/Hong Kong

1 memorial
William Combe

William Combe

Writer. Chiefly remembered as the author of 'The Three Tours of Dr Syntax', a comic poem which satirised William Gilpin. 

Person, Literature

1 memorial

Previously viewed

H. W. Smith

H. W. Smith

Co-partner or employee of the South Suburban Gas Company. Served but did not die in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War served, WW1
1 memorial
Max Wall

Max Wall

Comedian and actor. Born Maxwell George Lorimer at 37 Glenshaw Mansions, Brixton. His parents were both music-hall entertainers. After his father's death, his mother married Harry Wallace, from who...

Person, Theatre, TV & Radio

1 memorial
Suffragette Fellowship

Suffragette Fellowship

Founded by Edith How-Martyn to "perpetuate the memory of the pioneers and outstanding events connected with women's emancipation and especially with the militant suffrage campaign, 1905-14, and thu...

Group, Gender Issues

1 memorial
John Lewis
War dead, WW1
1 memorial
John Constable - Mansion Gardens

John Constable - Mansion Gardens

NW3, West Heath Road, Mansion Gardens

The plaque has mis-named the painting; it's actually 'Hampstead Heath, with the House Called ‘The Salt Box’'. The 1999 book 'Discovering...

2 subjects commemorated