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

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 |
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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 |
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