Patrick Comerford
Plaques have been popping up all over the country with the words: ‘On this site, Sept. 5, 1782, nothing happened.’ I have seen them in Lichfield, in Stony Stratford, in Walsingham, and in countless other places the length and breadth of England, and I believe they can be seen in many other countries too.
There used to be one on Dam Street in Lichfield and another on Market Square in Stony Stratford, and I spotted one on Church Street in Walsingham about six months ago.
So, did nothing really happen in any of these places 244 years ago – or, for that matter, anywhere else either?
Did nobody famous die?
Was no-one born that day who went on to become famous later in life?
Did no-one die in battle or in bed, fall off a horse, win a school prize, get married, do something tragic, disastrous, profane or of subsequent consequence – anything at all on 5 September 1782?
These plaques look a little like the ones so often seen commemorating famous births, battles or royal visits, record-breaking achievements discoveries or ventures, misadventures, mishaps, misfortunes or even first-time firsts.
Real commemorative plaques are usually blue with white lettering, with some variations in colours, generally circular in shape, and usually erected by English Heritage or Historic England, sometimes approved by a local council, or put in place by an enthusiastic local history society.
The original blue plaque scheme was the idea of politician William Ewart (1798-1869) in 1863 and the ball was set rolling by the Society of Arts in 1867, when the first plaque was unveiled in 1867 to commemorate Lord Byron at his birthplace, 24 Holles Street, Cavendish Square, London.
The scheme has been run since 1986 by English Heritage and is now the oldest of its kind in the world.
But the plaques celebrating 5 September 1782 seem have started as a humorous prank, a good-natured gag to place what have s become popular novelties on buildings and bridges, houses and hotels, streets and shops around the world, satirising an old and much-loved tradition by memorialising the mundane and the ordinary
Tourists spotting them and stopping awhile may well ask their origins. The answer is found online and in gift shops, and the price is anywhere from £20 to £30. If you buy one for more you probably deserve your own commemorative plaque.
The date 5 September 1782 seems to have been chosen arbitrarily as a tongue-in-cheek specific date for a completely unremarkable day.
One suggestion is that the year 1782 is a design error, and that it should read 1752. Britain and Ireland, and everywhere else in the British Empire at the time for that matter, changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. The Gregorian calendar calculated leap years differently, and by 1752 the Julian calendar was out of synch with the Gregorian calendar by 13 days. The only way to fix this anomaly was to just change the date.
When the change was introduced, the calendar simply changed in September 1752 and moved from 2 September to 14 September. The dates in between never happened, and 11 days were lost from the calendar and lost to history as a result. The date 5 September 1752 is one of those, lost, forgotten missing days that no-one ever woke up to and nothing happened, a day when nothing could have happened.
As for William Ewart, he died in 1869, two years after his ‘Blue Plaque’ scheme was first introduced. And he has earned his own blue plaque in Hampton: he successfully introduced legislation to abolish hanging in chains, an act to abolish capital punishment for cattle-stealing, a bill establishing free libraries supported out of public rates, and a law to legalise using the metric system in weights and measures, and he was a strong advocate of the abolition of capital punishment.
