Erection date: 1938
Sir Joseph Banks, 1743-1820, President of the Royal Society, Robert Brown, 1773-1858, and David Don 1800-1841, botanists, lived in a house on this site. The Linnean Society met here 1821-1857.
The house in which Banks etc lived had had a blue plaque attached in 1911. When it was demolished and replaced in 1938 with this building, Twentieth Century House, the LCC erected this memorial. The unusual design of this indirect replacement - a rectangular tablet of Portland stone with no reference to the LCC inscribed - was intended to reflect the unusual decision by the LCC to erect a memorial on the 'site of' an historic building, something it rarely did during its long (1901-1964) custodianship of the official London plaque scheme.
Site: Botanists in Soho Square (2 memorials)
W1, Soho Square, 31-32
The blue plaque was erected on the historic house. When that was demolished and replaced with the large 1930s block, the inscribed stone was erected as a sort of replacement.
In our photo the Botanists inscription is above the right-most potted scrub. Incidentally, this photograph of the building catches a typical London sight - a van driver trying to escape before the uniformed warden completes his parking ticket.
Banks’ library and collection was held here 1777 – 1827. Banks himself lived here from August 1777 and spent at least part of each year here, possibly until he died in 1820.
Robert Brown and David Don were respectively and consecutively librarians for Banks and the Linnean Society, which met here 1821 - 57.
The current (2025) building was formerly known as Twentieth Century House since it was the HQ of 20th Century Fox.
2025: for a covered alley through this site, between Soho Square and Dean Street.
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