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Blue Plaques |
There are three English Heritage blue plaques in Mortlake parish.
Blue plaque erected at Cedar Court, 132 Sheen Lane in 2013
Richard Dimbleby was born in Richmond in 1913. His grandfather owned the Richmond and Twickenham Times, and his father was its editor. Richard worked for the Richmond newspaper from 1931 before moving to the Southern Evening Echo in Southampton. He joined the BBC in 1936 as a radio reporter. Richard married Dilys Thomas in 1937, and they moved into Cedar Court, where they lived until 1939.
Richard was a prominent journalist and broadcaster, and was the BBC's first war correspondent. He became a television news commentator after the war and hosted the BBC’s Panorama from 1955 until 1965. He was made a CBE in 1959.
Richard Dimbleby died in December 1965. He was cremated and a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey on 4 January 1966. There is a bronze tablet to his memory in the south choir aisle of the Abbey.
Blue plaque erected at 55 York Avenue, East Sheen in 2006
Kathleen "Kitty" Godfree (nee McKane) was born in London in 1896. She has been described as the greatest British female tennis player of all time. She won five Olympic medals at the 1920 Antwerp and 1924 Paris games, as well as winning seven Grand Slam titles, including four Wimbledon titles.
Kitty also excelled at lacrosse and skating as well as badminton, where she won eight All England Open Badminton Championships from 1920 to 1925.
Kitty married Leslie Godfree while they were on a tennis tour of South Africa in 1925, and a year later they became the only married couple to win the mixed doubles at Wimbledon. She was the author of two tennis manuals and ran, with Leslie, the West Kensington Tennis Club from 1927 to 1936. They had two sons, David born in 1929 and Martin born in 1937. Leslie and Kitty moved to York Avenue in 1936. Leslie died in 1971.
Kitty was the subject of a This is Your Life programme in 1986 and was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while shopping in a supermarket in East Sheen! Kitty was a familiar figure riding her bicycle in East Sheen and she continued to live in York Avenue until just before her death in 1992.
Blue plaque erected at 287 Sheen Lane in 2017
Robert Watson-Watt radio, engineer, inventor, and pioneer of radar, was born in Brechin, Scotland in 1892. He began his career in the Meteorology Office using radio for the detection of thunderstorms. By 1927 he was the Director of the Radio Research Station and later became the Superintendent of the Radio Department at the National Physical Laboratory. In 1935 he showed, for the first time in Britain, that aircraft could be detected by bouncing radio waves off them. This was later called RADAR – Radio Detection And Ranging. Watson-Watt’s work resulted in the installation of a chain of radar stations along the east and south coasts of England in time for the outbreak of war in 1939. With advance warning of Luftwaffe formations over France, the RAF were able to scramble aircraft and intercept the enemy pilots over the channel. This laid the groundwork that helped the RAF to win the Battle of Britain. He was knighted in 1942.
Watson-Watt lived in Sheen Lane from 1938 until the late 1940s. He was married three times and had one daughter. He later lived in Canada and the United States before returning to Scotland. While in Canada he was reportedly caught speeding by a police officer using a radar-gun. "Had I known what you were going to do with it," he is said to have replied, "I would never have invented it!" Sir Robert Watson-Watt died in Inverness in 1973.