Celebrated for her industrial textile designs for the London Underground, designer Enid Marx will be commemorated with a blue plaque today (5 April). English Heritage will unveil a blue plaque at number 39 Thornhill Road, the mid-nineteenth century house where Marx lived and worked for more than thirty years. Her purpose-built studio in the back garden remains in much the same condition as she left it nearly 25 years ago. Marx shared the house with her partner, Margaret Lambert and friends Eleanor Breuning and Grace Lambert. Eleanor Breuning continues to live at the house today.

Enid Marx studied at the Royal College of Art where she was part of what Paul Nash described as an ‘outbreak of talent’. Her most notable work includes the 1937 commission to design the seating fabric for the London Underground and the 1953 design for postage stamps marking the start of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

Art Historian and Blue Plaques Panel member, Andrew Graham-Dixon, said: "Enid Marx was a designer of phenomenal talent and her textiles for the London Underground are without doubt among the design classics of the twentieth century: I have loved them ever since I was a little boy travelling on the tube, only learning the name of their creator much later in life. I’m absolutely delighted that she is to be honoured with a blue plaque, it’s richly deserved."

Enid Marx’s great-niece and coordinator of the Estate of Enid Marx, Katia Marsh, said: "Enid Marx was well-known as a designer during her long life - almost the whole of the twentieth century, although millions of travellers would have sat on her Underground seating fabrics without even knowing her name. Others would have licked her coronation stamps, or cheered up their intellectual sitting rooms with her red white and blue jacket design for the twelve volumes of Marcel Proust’s famous novel."

With the unveiling of this new plaque, Enid Marx will join the likes of Harry Beck – designer of the London Underground map – and artist and fellow textile designer for the London Underground, Paul Nash.

The London blue plaques scheme was established in 1866 and today, only 14 per cent of the scheme’s 950 plus plaques commemorate women. English Heritage doesn’t think this is good enough and is working to address the historic gender imbalance in the scheme. The London blue plaques scheme relies on public nominations and since 2016 the charity has been encouraging people to nominate more remarkable female figures from the past – figures like Enid Marx – for an iconic blue roundel.

The English Heritage London Blue Plaques scheme is generously supported by David Pearl and members of the public.