English Heritage has today (10 August 2022) unveiled a blue plaque dedicated to Dadabhai Naoroji, an Indian Nationalist and the first Indian to win a popular election to Parliament in the UK. Dubbed the 'grand old man of India' and described in his Times obituary as 'the father of Indian Nationalism', Naoroji made seven trips to England, and spent over three decades of his long life in London. His plaque marks the red-bricked semi-detached house in Penge, south London, that was his home around the turn of the twentieth century.

With a career characterised by campaigning, both in India and in England, against the excesses of colonial rule, Naoroji first stood for Parliament in the general election as Liberal candidate for Holborn in 1886. Unsuccessful - despite the endorsement of Florence Nightingale - it was the later reference by Prime Minister Lord Salisbury that the time had not come when 'a British constituency would elect a black man' which propelled him into the national spotlight. In the general election of July 1892 he was elected on a Liberal ticket for the north London constituency of Finsbury Central, in the face of hostile propaganda that described him as a fire-worshipper. Among the causes Naoroji advocated were the right of women to sit in Parliament, home rule for Ireland and reform of the British governance of India. With a campaign anthem based on the contemporary music hall song 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay', he won by just five votes, earning him the nickname 'Narrow-majority'.

By the time Naoroji moved to 72 Anerley Park in August 1897 his thoughts were turning increasingly towards full independence for India. Much of his time here would have been occupied by his work as a member of the Welby Commission, set up by the British Government to investigate wasteful spending in India. He left the address in 1904 or 1905, making it his longest standing London residence.

Author, broadcaster, journalist and English Heritage Blue Plaques Panel member, Mihir Bose, said: "Dadabhai Naoroji symbolises the complex relationship between Britain and India during the British Raj. The first Asian to win a seat in the House of Commons in a popular election, defying predictions that the British would not vote for a black man, he was also one of the founding fathers of the Indian National Congress, the party which eventually led India to independence. He was also one of the first to try and estimate the economic cost of colonialism on the colonised.

"We are delighted to honour the man at the house in London where he spent more time than at any of his other London addresses and where, in his seventies, he lived up to his reputation of being the "Grand Old Man of India" by giving advice and assistance to visitors from India."

Naoroji was an influential political and intellectual force in India and in Britain too. His 'drain theory' – contending that India was impoverished by an expensive foreign bureaucracy for which it had to pay, and that any benefits from the British presence there were incidental – continues to resonate. A key text – Poverty and Un-British rule in India (1901) – was published while he was living in Penge.

In receiving this blue plaque Dadabhai Naoroji joins many others whose work helped to set India on the path to independence, including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, V.K. Krishna Menon and Sister Nivedita, who is known to have visited him at his home in Penge.

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