Plaque to distinguished public servant

A strong supporter of a museum dedicated to Wisbech’s most famous daughter has been honoured with a memorial plaque.

Members of the family of Sheffield-born Ann Carlisle, a former Wisbech mayor and chairman of Fenland District Council, have gathered at Octavia Hill’s Birthplace House for the unveiling of a plaque in Heroes’ Arcade.

The prominent benefactor of the Birthplace House and her adopted town, who died in 2016, was the daughter of the distinguished surgeon, Dr William Carlisle, who worked at the North Cambs Hospital and who was given the freedom of the borough on his retirement.

The Heroes’ Arcade in the garden of the Birthplace House at 7 South Brink is based on a memorial at Postman’s Park, near St Paul’s Cathedral in London, dedicated to ordinary people who have performed acts of extraordinary heroism.

Mr Peter Clayton, chairman of the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum Trust, said that as a woman from the town who had made her mark Miss Carlisle was a natural choice for the memorial.

He said:  “Ann Carlisle was a particularly active supporter of the whole project to establish a museum in Wisbech dedicated to the town’s celebrated daughter, whose whole range of achievements in happy homes, open spaces, the co-founding of the National Trust, social inclusion and the founding of the modern army cadet movement is now displayed in 13 rooms of the Birthplace House.”