I thought I’d update you all on our blue plaques project, which has been pitched to 4iP.

The idea has evolved slightly. We’re taking it in a direction beyond simply making information about pre-existing blue plaques available on your mobile phone, and more towards building a service and a community where people can suggest new people, places and events that should be commemorated.

Part of the reasoning behind this is that we’re fast discovering that it’s not just English Heritage who put up blue plaques – there are all sorts of local authorities, civic societies and historical trusts who have erected plaques. However, each of them have their own, time-consuming and ideosyncratic process for accepting ideas for new plaques, often with committees who meet only annually to review the nominations.

So there’s an opportunity here to open up this process, making it speedier, more transparent, and open to public scrutiny and debate. After all, our history doesn’t ‘belong’ to any one organisation or authority, and deciding what we value enough to physically commemorate should be something we can all take part in.

We’re already finding evidence that a service of this sort would be useful. In a response to an Freedom of Information request which we submitted, Manchester City Council have revealed that due to public interest they are “exploring the feasibility of the revival of the Manchester Plaques scheme, which … was suspended in the 1990s due to a lack of funds for staff to carry out the necessary liaison and historical research.” Our project could tie directly in with this as a way for the council to assess which proposed plaques are popular and well-researched enough to be installed.

Unfortunately, though, not every area has a local authority who would be willing to even consider erecting new commemorative plaques. With this in mind, 4iP have asked us to look at how people might create ‘guerilla plaques’, that bypass the need to actually cement a circle of aluminium to the wall.

So far, we’ve thought of chalk marks (inspired in part by the idea of ‘warchalking’), ‘reverse graffiti’ (where you selectively clean a dirty pavement) and text written on masking tape (which peels off easily). If you have any better ideas of how to do this kind of physical geotagging though, we’d be keen to hear them. The criteria is that it should be non-destructive yet reasonably resilliant, and able to convey a brief inscription (“John Doe lived here”). Oh, and preferably not be too illegal.

Anyone?

The status of this proposal with 4iP is currently ‘developing up to case file’, and then pending final approval and contract signing. We’ll keep you updated with how it progresses.