Joseph M. W. Turner Artist. Was born here 1775. Died 1851

An English Heritage campaign asking the public to help locate some of the London plaques lost in the 150-plus years that the scheme has been running resulted in this plaque resurfacing in 2024. A curiosity, it is not (unlike the other 35 known plaques put up by the Society of Arts between 1867 and 1901) documented in the Journal of the Society and it seems it was never officially erected. It is believed to have been manufactured just as the SOA were, by mutual agreement, transferring the plaque scheme to the London County Council, at the turn of the century and was intended for No.26 Maiden Lane, at the time believed to have been Turner's birthplace and some problem - perhaps with the building, perhaps with the Bedford Estate - prevented it from being hung there (Alexander J. Finberg - whose biography of Turner was published in 1939 - found that Turner had in fact been born at No.21 Maiden Lane, but lived at 26 in later life. No.21 had been demolished in the 1870s. The building that replaced it being flattened in a 1944 air raid, the site remaining vacant for 40-odd years). The plaque was the subject of an article by Al Weil, writing for the Turner Society News (No 17, April 1980, page 4) told the tale of how a Mr Paul Fessler, at the time the managing director of Displaywork Limited, recalled seeing the plaque in his father's firms offices at 12/13 Henrietta Street (very close to Maiden Lane) in the early 1950s and would, after the plaque was removed in 1974 prior to the remodelling of those offices, rescue it from a pile of rubble. Hopes expressed in the article that the plaque would be affixed to a building never came to fruition, but the Turner Society would later collaborate with Westminster City Council to have made and erected one of their green plaques indicating the great painters birthplace in 1999. At some point the plaque found its way into the Westminster Archives. It is not currently on display, but it is hoped that it can be passed on to an organisation - perhaps turnershouse.org more suited to conserving it.