The Rainbow Plaque programme is a UK system installing commemorative plaques to highlight significant people, places and moments in LGBTQIA+ history. Emulating established UK blue plaque programmes run by English Heritage, local authorities and other bodies, the first permanent rainbow plaque (a blue circular plaque with six rainbow colours around the circumference) was unveiled in York in July 2018. Some UK LGBT locations are denoted by pink plaques, an idea that predated rainbow plaques.
The rainbow plaque programme was initiated in 2018 by York Civic Trust and the York LGBT Forum to honour lesbian diarist Anne Lister (1791–1840) and her partner Ann Walker, with the first version of a plaque unveiled on 24 July 2018,[1] replaced with amended wording including the word 'lesbian' in February 2019.[2][3] Temporary cardboard plaques were also placed on key sites during LGBT pride campaigns in York in 2018 and Leeds in 2019.[4][5]
The permanent plaque initiative then extended nationally through the Wandsworth LGBTQ+ Forum and Studio Voltaire, unveiling permanent plaques for Oscar Wilde at Clapham Junction railway station on 24 July 2019,[6] and for the 1985 film My Beautiful Laundrette on Wilcox Road in South Lambeth on 10 September 2021.[7] A rainbow plaque was also unveiled in Burnley on 30 July 2021 marking the 50th anniversary of a meeting of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality held at Burnley Library.[8]
In 2023, five further rainbow plaques were announced for London, supported by the Mayor of London's Untold Stories Fund and Wandsworth Oasis.[9][10]
Predating rainbow plaques, pink triangle plaque memorials have memorialised gay people killed in the Holocaust and victims of anti-gay violence. In the UK, the idea of pink plaques to more generally commemorate and celebrate LGBT heritage was promoted in a 1986 book, The Pink Plaque Guide to London, written by Michael Elliman and Frederick Roll and published by Gay Men's Press.[14] Pink plaques were also discussed in Brighton in 2006,[15] and a mobile phone app was later (2020) created to guide users to Brighton pink plaque locations.[16]
Pink plaques have been unveiled in some UK locations to celebrate LGBT heritage. For example, the first pink plaque in Nottingham was unveiled at the New Foresters, a popular gay bar on St Ann's Street, on 17 September 2021.[17] On 19 September 2021, a pink plaque commemorating Mary Wollstonecraft was due to be unveiled in Islington, London, near to a girls’ school she established in 1784, with plaques at other Islington locations to follow.[18]