Behind the Frieze
THE BUILDING
The impressive building of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is the sole occupant of
what remains of Keppel Street; a street which, until the building of the Senate House of the
University of London in the 1930s, ran from Gower Street to Russell Square. Keppel Street
commemorates Lady Elizabeth Keppel, the bride of the Marquis of Tavistock, heir to the fourth Duke
of Bedford. Although the marriage looked as if it would be a case of 'they both lived happily ever
after' Lord Tavistock was killed in a hunting accident less than three years after their marriage and
Lady Elizabeth went into a decline and died a year later. In its day Keppel Street was home to some
distinguished tenants: the novelist Anthony Trollope was born at no.16 where his mother, the
resourceful author, Fanny Trollope, was then living. Two other residents were the artist John
Constable, and the Irish nationalist and politician Charles Stewart Parnell, who lived in the house
formerly occupied by the Trollopes.
THE FRIEZE
Twenty-three names form the frieze on the exterior of the School. Mystery surrounds the reasoning
behind their selection which was made by a committee of unknown constitution who pondered
deeply on which of the names of the great and good in the fields of hygiene and tropical medicine
merited such public acclaim.
The only female name on the short list was that of Florence Nightingale, who was excluded because
her surname of eleven letters was too long for inclusion. However room was found for the name of
Max von Pettenkofer (count the letters!) who denied that cholera was a water-borne disease!
The arrangement of the brief biographies that follow is chronological, as the lives of some of their
subjects interwined. Please click on a name to see a short biography of each individual.