Blue plaque unveiled to Cambridge MP Oliver Cromwell
A commemorative blue plaque to the former Cambridge MP Oliver Cromwell has been unveiled in the city.
Former Prime Minister Sir John Major unveiled the plaque at Sidney Sussex College, where puritan Cromwell was once a student. The plaque was placed in Market Passage, at the site of the Black Bear Inn, on Monday by the Cromwell Association and Cambridge Blue Plaque.
Cromwell led the rebellion against King Charles I which saw the monarch put on trial and eventually beheaded.
The inn was where Cromwell held meetings to plan the Parliamentarian effort when England descended into civil war in 1642. The conflicts broke out between the Roundheads, led by Cromwell, and the royalist Cavaliers after hostilities between Charles I and Parliament reached breaking point. Cromwell became Lord Protector following the king’s execution.
The plaque is the city’s only public memorial to Cromwell.
A spokesman for the Cromwell Association said: “The association is delighted that it has been able to work with the Cambridge Blue Plaque committee to address this anomaly. It is terrific that at long last Cromwell has got some kind of public memorial here in Cambridge. He was a man who represented Cambridge as an MP throughout the civil war and indeed afterwards and yet there was no public monument to Cromwell in the city at all.”
Cromwell was born in Huntingdon in April 1599 and attended Huntingdon Grammar School before joining Sidney Sussex College. He left the college in 1616, without taking a degree, following the death of his father.
The Cromwell Association has a long tradition of erecting plaques and memorials to Cromwell, of which this is the most recent.
For more information visit, olivercromwell.org.
The Cambridge blue plaque scheme was launched in 2001 to honour the most famous people and events associated with the city. Anything commemorated with a plaque must have had a significant impact on life in the city.
The Cromwell commemorative plaque joins nearly 30 others in place across Cambridge.