Erection date: 1984
Ronald MacDonald Hutchison, Harry Tate, 1872 - 1940, music hall comedian, lived here.
Greater London Council
It is likely that the plaque was retrieved by English Heritage for possible future reuse on another building - its inscription being usefully non-specific as to date or location.
The photo of the plaque, taken by the Greater London Council in 1984, is published with the permission of . TLA reference code.
We thank Steve Roffey for his work on the history of this plaque. See also .
Site: Harry Tate - SW17 (1 memorial)
SW17, Longley Road, 72
At this 1984 photo is captioned: "View of a semi-detached house at 72 Longley Road, Tooting, looking south. A Blue Plaque was erected in 1984 to commemorate music hall artist Harry Tate (1872 –1940) who lived here. This house was demolished in the early 1990s and flats now occupy the site."
The house in the photo is actually a detached, double-fronted house, with square projecting bays. Checking the house numbers on the houses that remain (62 and 66) it's possible to estimate where no. 72 would have been and we believe this shows no.72. Near the centre of that map there's a T-junction, with an empty site opposite the end of Charlmont Road, and the next plot to the east has a house with square projecting bays. This is surely no. 72. All the other nearby houses are shown with bevelled bays, and the house numbering works. Though it's odd that the map shows only the two bay windows, not the entrance porch. (But see our last paragraph below.)
The consists of houses/flats along Longley Road with Roshni House in what would have been the back gardens.
Sir Harry Lauder lived just up the road, 1903-11. Pity we don't have Tate's dates of occupation - the two Harrys may have known each other as neighbours. This comment of ours prompted Mike Coleman to do the research: the 1911 census shows both Lauder and Hutchison (Tate) in Longley Road so they were in the road contemporaneously - perhaps they did know each other as neighbours.
That census information indicates that the road had been renumbered between 1911 and modern day: the Lauder plaque is on number 46 while at the time of the census he was living at number 24. So our calculations (above) about the location of number 72 (based on current day numbering) may be wrong. If the renumbering took place after the 1984 photo then adding 22 gives us which is also a rebuild. If the renumbering took place before the 1984 photo then subtracting 22 gives us which is not a rebuild so it can't be the site of a house demolished in the early 1990s. We are left with the site of Tate's plaque probably being house number 94, but it all feels a bit uncertain.
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