Plath, Turing, and Marlowe honoured in North West Cambridge development

Prominent figures from Cambridge’s past will give their names to the streets, neighbourhoods, and buildings of the new development

Davies, Marlowe, Plath, Wittgenstein, Turing, and Murdoch (pictured clockwise from top) are all honoured.Harry Curtis

by Matt Gutteridge

This article is 10 years old

Monday June 6 2016, 5:56pm

Fifty famous figures from Cambridge’s past will give their names to streets, neighbourhoods, and buildings on the North West Cambridge site, it has been announced.

The shortlist, announced by the West and North West Cambridge Estates Syndicate, includes fifteen Nobel Prize winners, several novelists, philosophers, physicists, and economists.

Subject to the approval of the local authority, the names of the 33 men and 17 women will be used for the streets, neighbourhoods, and buildings of the £1 billion development, scheduled for completion in 2017.

American writer, Sylvia Plath – some of whose earliest poems appeared in Varsity – will have a street named after her, as will the Irish author and philosopher, Iris Murdoch.

Pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, a student of King’s College, has also been put forward, along with his colleague at Bletchley Park, cryptanalyst Joan Murray.

Among the other famous names honoured are the feminist and founder of Girton College Emily Davies, playwright and Corpus Christi alumnus Christopher Marlowe, and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, professor and fellow of Trinity College.

Trinity will have the most representation of any college, with fourteen former students and fellows having earned recognition. Eight physicists have made the final list, the most of any discipline.

In accordance with council conventions, names which relate to living people, promote an active organisation, or “might encourage defacing of nameplates” were not considered.

The list of names was produced following a public consultation, publicised in local press, social media, and university channels.

All the newly approved names, and names previously picked by the local community

Hertha Ayrton	Muriel Bradbrook	Frances Crofts Cornford	Emily Davies	Maurice Dobb
John Donne	Joseph Farman	Edward Morgan Forster	Christopher Hogwood	Nicholas Kaldor
Georg Kreisel	C S Lewis	Christopher Marlowe	James Meade	Iris Murdoch
Joan Murray	Sylvia Plath	Frank Plumpton Ramsey	The Ridgeway	Joan Robinson
Charlotte Angas Scott	W W Skeat	Lucy Slater	Bertha Swirles	Elsie Widdowson
David Williams	Ludwig Wittgenstein
Edward Appleton	Francis Aston	William Bragg	Miles Burkitt	Mary Cartwright
Paul Dirac	Arthur Eddington	Howard Florey	Dorothy Garrod	Dorothy Hodgkin
Joseph Hutchinson	Andrew Huxley	John Kendrew	George Porter	Jean Rudduck
Martin Ryle	Charles Sherrington	George Thomson	Alan Turing	Ernest Walton
Margaret Wileman	Maurice Wilkes

Support Varsity

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our print newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding and we expect to have a tough few months and years ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content and of course in print too!

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as £1, to help with our running costs. Many thanks, we hope you can help!