 Tavistock Square, looking north, BMA House on the right | |
 Tavistock Square with Mahatma Gandhi statue at the centre | |
| Namesake | Marquess of Tavistock |
|---|---|
| Location | Bloomsbury, London Borough of Camden, Inner London |
Tavistock Square is a public square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden near Euston Station.
Tavistock Square was built shortly after 1806 by the property developer James Burton and the master builder Thomas Cubitt for Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, and formed part of the Bedford Estate in London, owned by the Dukes of Bedford. [1] The square takes its name from Marquess of Tavistock , a courtesy title given to the eldest sons of the Dukes of Bedford. [2]
In 1920 the Tavistock Clinic was founded in the square, a pioneering psychiatric clinic whose patients included shell-shock victims of the First World War. [3] In 1946 the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations separated from the Tavistock Clinic. The Tavistock Clinic has since moved to Swiss Cottage. [3]
Richard Lydekker, naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history, was born at Tavistock Square in 1849. [4]
Tavistock Square was the scene of one of the four suicide bombings on 7 July 2005. The bomb was detonated by 18-year-old Hasib Hussain on a double-decker bus bearing route number 30; it had been diverted from its normal route along Euston Road because of traffic disruption by the other three bombings at tube stations. The bomb exploded immediately outside the British Medical Association building, many of whose staff came out to give what help they could. The explosion killed 13 passengers, plus Hussain himself. Many others were injured. [5] In September 2018, a memorial honouring the victims and the efforts of those who gave assistance was unveiled in Tavistock Square Gardens, replacing a plaque that had been fixed to the railings outside BMA House, opposite to the new site. [6]
The centre-piece of the gardens is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, sculpted by Fredda Brilliant and installed in 1968. The hollow pedestal was intended, and is used, for people to leave floral tributes to the peace campaigner and nonviolent resister to oppression in South Africa and British rule in India. [7]
A cherry tree was planted in 1967 in memory of the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [8]
A generation later, in 1994, the Conscientious Objectors Commemorative Stone commemorating "men and women conscientious objectors all over the world and in every age" by Hugh Court was unveiled. [9]
These three features have led to the square unofficially being regarded by some as a peace park or garden, and annual ceremonies are held at each of these memorials. [8]
A bust of the writer Virginia Woolf, cast from a 1931 sculpture by Stephen Tomlin (1901–1937), was unveiled in 2004 at the southwest corner of the square. Woolf lived at 52 Tavistock Square between 1924 and 1939. From there she and her husband Leonard Woolf ran the Hogarth Press, which became a prominent and influential publisher at the forefront of modernist fiction and poetry (publishing T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster and Katherine Mansfield among others) and translating the works of Sigmund Freud into English. [10]
The square contains a memorial to the surgeon Dame Louisa Aldrich-Blake (1865 –1925), with a bust of Aldrich-Blake by Arthur George Walker on a plinth designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. [11]
The following buildings are on Tavistock Square:
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest museum in the United Kingdom, and several educational institutions, including University College London and a number of other colleges and institutes of the University of London as well as its central headquarters, the New College of the Humanities, the University of Law, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the British Medical Association and many others. Bloomsbury is an intellectual and literary hub for London, as home of world-known Bloomsbury Publishing, publishers of the Harry Potter series, and namesake of the Bloomsbury Group, a group of British intellectuals which included author Virginia Woolf, biographer Lytton Strachey, and economist John Maynard Keynes.
Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell was an English aristocrat and society hostess. Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers including Aldous Huxley, Siegfried Sassoon, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence, and artists including Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington and Gilbert Spencer.
Tavistock is an ancient stannary and market town within West Devon, England. It is situated on the River Tavy from which its name derives. At the 2011 census the three electoral wards had a population of 13,028. It traces its recorded history back to at least 961 when Tavistock Abbey, whose ruins lie in the centre of the town, was founded. Its most famous son is Sir Francis Drake.
Russell Square is a large garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, built predominantly by the firm of James Burton. It is near the University of London's main buildings and the British Museum. Almost exactly square, to the north is Woburn Place and to the south-east is Southampton Row. Russell Square tube station sits to the north-east.
Bloomsbury Square is a garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, London. Developed in the late 17th century, it was initially known as Southampton Square and was one of the earliest London squares. By the early 19th century, Bedford House along the north of the square had been demolished and replaced with terraced housing designed by James Burton.
Gordon Square is a public park square in Bloomsbury, London, England. It is part of the Bedford Estate and was designed as one of a pair with the nearby Tavistock Square. It is owned by the University of London.
The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. It does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The BMA has a range of representative and scientific committees and is recognised by National Health Service (NHS) employers alongside the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association as one of two national contract negotiators for doctors.
Bedford Square is a garden square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England.
The A4200 is a major thoroughfare in central London. It runs between the A4 at Aldwych, to the A400 Hampstead Road/Camden High Street, at Mornington Crescent tube station, via Holborn, Bloomsbury, Euston and Somerstown.
Desmond Thomas Doss was a United States Army corporal who served as a combat medic with an infantry company in World War II.
Mecklenburgh Square is a Grade II listed square in Bloomsbury, London. The square and its garden were part of the Foundling Estate, a residential development of 1792–1825 on fields surrounding and owned by the Foundling Hospital. The square was named in honour of King George III's queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. It was begun in 1804, but was not completed until 1825.
Dame Louisa Brandreth Aldrich-Blake was a pioneering surgeon and one of the first British women to enter the world of modern medicine.
Tavistock House was the London home of the noted British author Charles Dickens and his family from 1851 to 1860. At Tavistock House Dickens wrote Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities. He also put on amateur theatricals there which are described in John Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. Later, it was the home of William and Georgina Weldon, whose lodger was the French composer Charles Gounod, who composed part of his opera Polyeucte at the house.
Endsleigh Cottage is a country house near Milton Abbot, about 6 miles NW of Tavistock, Devon in England. It is a Grade I listed building. The gardens are Grade I listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The house was built in the early 19th century for the Duke of Bedford. Today, it is a hotel.
St Michael and All Angels is a Grade II* listed Church of England parish church in Bedford Park, Chiswick. It was designed by the architect Norman Shaw, who built some of the houses in that area. The church was consecrated in 1880. It is constructed in what has been described both as British Queen Anne Revival style and as Perpendicular Gothic style modified with English domestic features. Its services are Anglo-Catholic.
The Conscientious Objectors' Commemorative Stone is on the north side of Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden.
Louisa Russell, Duchess of Bedford, formerly Louisa Crommelin Roberta Jowitt Whitwell, was an English noblewoman, the wife of Hastings Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford, and mother of the 13th Duke.
A bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi by Fredda Brilliant was unveiled in 1968 at the centre of Tavistock Square in London, to mark the impending centenary of Gandhi's birth in 1869. Mahatma Gandhi had studied law at University College London nearby from 1888 to 1891, before being called to the bar at the Inner Temple.
The British Medical Association War Memorial, officially the War Memorial at British Medical Association House, Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, London, commemorates men and women of the medical professions from the British Empire and Commonwealth who died in the Second World War. The memorial was commissioned by the British Medical Association and designed by the sculptor James Woodford. Unveiled in 1954 by Sir John McNee, then President of the BMA, and dedicated by Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, it became a Grade II* listed structure in 1998.
Deptford Town Hall is a municipal building in New Cross Road, Deptford, London. It is a Grade II listed building and is currently owned and operated by Goldsmiths College.
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