165 Railton Road. Photograph by sarflondondunc

C.L.R James, the journalist, socialist theorist and writer, lived the final years of his life and died in this building in South London.

Visiting

The building is a private residence but is marked with a Blue Plaque.

Also see…

• Open Plaques
• The Brixton £10 note features James on the reverse

Chilvers Coton Church. Photograph by Aidan McRae Thomson

Novelist George Eliot was baptised (as Mary Ann Evans) at Chilvers Coton Church, Nuneaton.

Parts of the church date back to the second half of the 13th century. The church was destroyed by bombs in May 1941 and later was rebuilt with the help of German prisoners of war.

The modern traditions of the church and parish are associated with George Eliot, and visitors are shown entries in the registers in connexion with her and her family, also graves of relatives and friends said to be originals of characters in her novels.

Many of the places in Eliot’s novels are based on the village of Chilvers Coton, which she calls Shepperton in Scenes of Clerical Life. Nearby is Arbury Hall, which, in Mr.Gilfil’s Love Story is called Cheverel Hall.

Visting

The village of Chilvers Coton is less than a mile from the centre of Nuneaton and is now absorbed into the town. All Saints is a living church. See website for details.

Opposite the Church is the free school. Built about 1800, it is now a heritage centre.

See also…

• All Saints, Chilvers Coton
• All Saints description and plans on History Online

Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales

Plas Penrhyn was Bertrand Russell‘s home in Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales.

Russell had a fondness for Wales and would live there for most of his later years.  The original idea to move to Wales was to provide a suitable place for his grandson’s family to live comfortably.  John, Russell’s grandson wanted to be a writer and there was little way to support his wife and three children in this manner.

Plas Penrhyn was near Duedraeth castle where Russell had stayed before and was near the sea (Penrhyndeudraeth means peninsula with two beaches in Welsh).  Percy Bysshe Shelley also had maintained a cottage in the local area.

It was from this regency manor that Russell would telgram both Khrushchev and Kennedy during the Cuban Missle Crisis, write his biography and live out his later years. In one passage of his biography he describes his first impressions of the house:

We stopped in North Wales where our friends Rupert and Elizabeth Crawshay-Williams had found a house, Plas Penrhyn, that they thought would make a pleasant holiday house for us and the children. It was small and unpretentious, but had a delightful garden and little orchard and a number of fine beech trees. Above all, it had a most lovely view, south to the sea, west to Portmadoc and the Caernarvon hills, and north up the valley of the Glasslyn to Snowdon. I was captivated by it, and particularly pleased that across the valley could be seen the house where Shelley lived. The owner of Plas Penrhyn agreed to let it to us largely, I think, because he, too, is a lover of Shelley and was much taken by my desire to write an essay on ‘Shelley the Tough’ (as opposed to the ‘ineffectual angel’). Later, I met a man at Tan-y-Ralt, Shelley’s house, who said he had been a cannibal…

Russell died at Plas Penrhyn on February 2, 1970, He was cremated at Colwyn Bay and his ashes scattered over the Welsh hills.

Visiting

Plas Penrhyn is now a private residence.

See also…

• BBC Wales biography of Russell

Bull House. By George Jelliss.

Sorry, this article hasn’t been written yet.

Would you like to write it for us?

Humanist Heritage relies on contributions from users so if you’re interested in helping us please drop us a line.

Jeremy Bentham plaque. By Christian Liits

Philosopher Jeremy Bentham lived for forty years in a house on the site now occupied by the Ministry of Justice (102 Petty France).

The house, in what came to be called Queen’s Square Place, was bequeathed to Bentham by his father Jeremiah on his death in 1792. Jeremiah had first rented the house in May 1763 while Jeremy was a fifteen year old undergraduate at Oxford. Jeremy’s first comment on the family’s move from Crutched Friars in the City, comes in a letter written from Queen’s College Oxford to his father on 24 March 1763:

I received the favour of yours on Friday, and am very glad to find by it, that you are likely to suit yourself with a house so much to your liking; for my part, from the description you give me, and the idea I have of it, I really think it must be very pleasant and convenient; I should be glad to hear that you have taken it, of which I can only draw a probable conclusion from your data, as you have not expressly mentioned it.

The house proved convenient for Jeremiah bought it at the end of 1764. Bentham’s house could be entered through a dark passageway from Queen Anne’s Gate near the site of the plaque, or through a gate into his garden from Bird Cage Walk to the left of the Barracks.

Councillor Catherine Longworth, Lord Mayor of Westminster and Professor Malcolm Grant, the President and Provost of University College London, unveiled a commemorative plaque to Jeremy Bentham on the gateway of the current building.

Visiting

The current building is a government office and not open to the public.

See also…

• Reporting of unveiling of plaque

2 Warington Crescent. Photography by Adam Bowie

This was the birthplace and childhood home of Alan Turing, pioneer of computer science.

On 23 June 1998, on what would have been Turing’s 86th birthday, Andrew Hodges, his biographer, unveiled an official English Heritage Blue Plaque here.

Visiting

2 Warrington Crescent is now the Colonnade Hotel.

Sorry, this article hasn’t been completed yet.

Would you like to write it for us?

Humanist Heritage relies on contributions from users so if you’re interested in helping us please drop us a line.

Would you like to write it for us?

Humanist Heritage relies on contributions from users so if you’re interested in helping us please drop us a line.

Visiting

This is a private home and not open to the public.