You can now see a blue plaque commemorating the work and life of Noor Inayat Khan, unveiled by English Heritage, in Bloomsbury.
Khan was a Muslim woman descended from Indian nobility who worked as a Special Operations Executive during the second world war, becoming a spy for Britain.
The plaque can be seen on the front of 4 Taviton Street, her family home where she lived until 1943, when she travelled to Nazi-occupied France to work as an undercover radio operator — the first woman to do so. She was killed at Dachau concentration camp the next year, aged just 30, having not given away any secrets to her captors. In 1949, Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross for her bravery, and is now recognised as Britain's first Muslim war heroine in Europe.
Khan was already commemorated by a little-known and often overlooked bust in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, but it's a welcome move to celebrate her life further in the form of a blue plaque — particularly as so few of London's blue plaques celebrate women, and there are even fewer representations of women from ethnic minorities.
Find out more about Noor Inayat Khan's blue plaque on the English Heritage website.
