Blue Plaque

MINUTES — Heritage Plaques Sub-Committee
Item 4: 19 Marsden Grove (Eleanor Fitzgibbon, 1901–1978)

4.1 The Chair reminded members that this item has been before the sub-committee eleven times.

4.2 The Chair further reminded members that the plaque was cast in 2021 and remains in the storage cupboard on the second floor.

4.3 Members noted the reminder.

4.4 Councillor Prendergast moved that the agreed wording be:

ELEANOR FITZGIBBON, 1901–1978, MATHEMATICIAN, LIVED HERE

4.5 Councillor Adeyemi objected on the grounds that Fitzgibbon was not a mathematician but a statistician, that she said so repeatedly and with some force during her lifetime, and that describing her as a mathematician would be, in Councillor Adeyemi's phrase, "the one thing she'd come back for."

4.6 Councillor Prendergast noted that the general public do not distinguish.

4.7 Councillor Adeyemi noted that the general public are not the ones being commemorated.

4.8 The Chair proposed STATISTICIAN.

4.9 Ms Baraniuk (co-opted, Local History Society) observed that Fitzgibbon's principal published work was in epidemiology, that she was employed for thirty-one years by the public health service, and that STATISTICIAN undersold it in a way that had already happened once, in her obituary, in 1978, which Ms Baraniuk then read aloud.

4.10 The obituary was four hundred words long.

4.11 Ms Baraniuk read all of it.

4.12 Councillor Prendergast proposed EPIDEMIOLOGIST.

4.13 Ms Baraniuk noted that Fitzgibbon never used this term of herself, the field not being called that at the time in the sense now understood.

4.14 The Chair asked what Fitzgibbon called herself.

4.15 Ms Baraniuk stated that in correspondence Fitzgibbon described herself variously as "a counter," "a clerk with opinions," and, on one occasion in 1961, "the only person in this building who reads the footnotes."

4.16 Councillor Adeyemi moved that the plaque read THE ONLY PERSON IN THIS BUILDING WHO READS THE FOOTNOTES.

4.17 The motion was seconded, in what the Chair recorded as "an unhelpful spirit," by Councillor Prendergast.

4.18 The Chair ruled the motion out of order on the grounds of the physical dimensions of the plaque.

4.19 Members discussed the physical dimensions of the plaque for nineteen minutes.

4.20 Mr Halloran (co-opted) raised, as he has at each of the previous eleven meetings, that Fitzgibbon lived at 19 Marsden Grove for only fourteen months and that the substantive part of her career was conducted from a house in Leeds.

4.21 Members noted Mr Halloran's point.

4.22 Members have noted Mr Halloran's point at every meeting since 2021.

4.23 The Chair enquired whether the sub-committee wished to refer the matter to full Committee.

4.24 Councillor Adeyemi observed that full Committee referred it here.

4.25 The Chair enquired whether anyone had spoken to Fitzgibbon's family.

4.26 Ms Baraniuk confirmed that she had, in 2021, and that Fitzgibbon's great-niece had said, and Ms Baraniuk quoted directly: "She'd have hated the whole thing. Put whatever you like. Just put it up."

4.27 Members noted this.

4.28 Councillor Prendergast asked whether the sub-committee might simply put it up.

4.29 There was a pause of some length.

4.30 Ms Baraniuk stated that if the sub-committee put up a plaque describing Fitzgibbon as a mathematician she would resign, and that she would write to the local paper, and that she has already drafted the letter.

4.31 The Chair proposed deferral.

4.32 Deferral agreed unanimously.

4.33 The plaque remains in the cupboard on the second floor.

4.34 It has been in the cupboard for four years.

4.35 It reads ELEANOR FITZGIBBON, 1901–1978, STATISTICIAN, LIVED HERE, having been cast in 2021 to a wording that the sub-committee agreed at its second meeting and has been unable to agree since.

Item 5: Any other business

5.1 None.