Sign of history: members of Peggy Ashcroft’s family, including her son Nicholas Hutchinson (second right) gathered from around the world for today’s plaque unveiling in South Croydon
Some 33 years after her death, English Heritage has today unveiled a blue plaque for Peggy Ashcroft, probably the most famous actress to have come from Croydon.
The unveiling of Dame Peggy’s plaque, at her childhood home, 1A Tirlemont Road in South Croydon – a suburban street that leads to Haling Grove – was conducted this morning attended by Nicholas Hutchinson, her son, granddaughters Manon and Emily Loizeau, and other members of her family who had travelled from around the world.
“The plaque will celebrate not only her birthplace but also her connection with the London borough,” English Heritage said in an announcement today.
Ashcroft had a gilded career on the stage and screen, including an Oscar-winning performance in the 1984 film A Passage To India, directed by David Lean. Lean has a cinema named after him in Croydon, Dame Peggy has the Ashcroft Theatre, in the Fairfield Halls.
Ashcroft – who was born on December 22, 1907 – often spoke of her fond memories of growing up in what was then a leafy market town.
It was while standing outside a grocer’s shop on George Street, at the age of 13, that she first dreamt of becoming an actress. When she returned to Croydon in 1962 to open the theatre named after her, Ashcroft recalled the formative experience of watching Shakespearean productions at Croydon’s Grand Theatre when she was a schoolgirl.
Oscar-winner: Peggy Ashcroft in David Lean’s 1984 film A Passage To India
“Peggy always received honours with humility and a great sense of humour, but all of us who knew her – children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews – know how very moved she would have been to see this blue plaque on her childhood family home,” Nicholas Hutchinson said.
“We will be imagining her here with her beloved brother Edward, running outside and laughing through the windows and we will be able to show to our own children, who didn’t know her but have heard so much about her, that this house was where she grew up, had her first dreams of going on stage, the place where it all started.”
On the stage, Peggy Ashcroft excelled in classical and modern roles alike.
She made her West End debut in 1929, and was soon after cast, famously, she played Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson in Othello, a breakthrough role.
Ashcroft’s performance as Juliet in the Oxford University Dramatic Society’s production of Romeo and Juliet in February 1932 proved to be the turning point of her career. The play was the first occasion when she acted with John Gielgud, who not only took the role of Romeo but also directed the play.
In 1932 Ashcroft signed a contract with the Old Vic Theatre on a weekly salary of £20 and embarked on a gruelling season of playing four Shakespearean heroines – Juliet, Rosalind, Imogen and Portia – as well as Cleopatra in George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra.
In addition, she took the title role in Arthur Schnitzler’s Fraulein Elsa. In the final scene, she fleetingly appeared in the nude as her character falls to the ground, having taken her own life; this was a theatrical first in the West End.
In 1935 she was invited by Gielgud to reprise her Juliet at the New Theatre in London and was hailed by The Daily Telegraph as “the finest Juliet of our time”. During wartime, Ashcroft was rehearsing the role of Ophelia in Hamlet in the West End when injured in a V2 bomb blast, suffering damage to her knee which never properly healed.
Pride of Croydon: Peggy Ashcroft was a great star of British theatre for half a century
In the post-war years, and the theatrical revival of that time, she worked with Gielgud and Anthony Quayle as they “rescued Stratford from its image of dowdy provincialism and to make it a centre of excellence”, according to the critic Michael Billington. This included an acclaimed performance as Cleopatra opposite Michael Redgrave in 1953.
Leading parts followed leading roles, in plays by Henrik Ibsen, Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht, seeing her receive her damehood in 1956. Soon after Ashcroft joined the newly formed Royal Shakespeare Company under Peter Hall, where she was cast alongside the likes of Peter O’Toole.
In her later years, she returned to the Old Vic and then the new National Theatre, while also being cast in a series of award-winning television and film roles, including the BAFTA-winning Jewel In The Crown.
When asked why she continued to act into her 70s and 80s, Ashcroft replied, “Well I think it’s some kind of compulsion. I’m compelled to do it.”
Dame Peggy Ashcroft died in London on June 24, 1991, aged 83.
Well-merited: Ashcroft’s blue plaque, at her childhood home
The London-wide blue plaques scheme has been running for 150 years. The Royal Society of Arts erected its first plaque – to poet, Lord Byron – in 1867. The scheme was subsequently administered by the London County Council (1901–1965) and by the Greater London Council (1965-1986), before being taken on by English Heritage.
There’s more than one thousand English Heritage blue plaques, but fewer than 200 of these are for women. “English Heritage’s ‘plaques for women’ campaign has seen a dramatic rise in the number of public nominations for women since it launched in 2016,” the agency says.
“Nominations are the lifeblood of the London blue plaques scheme and if we are to continue to see a significant increase in the number of blue plaques for women, we need more female suggestions.”
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