George Bridgetower: Bath student calls for plaque to mark concert

A petition to install a heritage plaque for a talented black musician has been signed by more than 16,000 people.

George Bridgetower played a concert in Bath when he was just 11-years-old, in 1789, and was tutored by Hadyn and became friends with Beethoven.

Student Tara Jettoo, who started the petition, said she wants the plaque to highlight part of Britain's black history.

The Bath World Heritage Site has been approached for comment.

The concert, at Bath's Assembly Rooms, came during a whirlwind young life for George, a child prodigy who played his first concert when he was just eight-years-old in Frankfurt.

"His father was a really flamboyant character who wore Turkish robes and created a rumour that George Bridgetower was an African prince, so some of the tickets to see him [in Bath] sold for £5, which was a huge amount at the time," said Ms Jettoo.

"His father almost exploited him for his money, and the Prince of Wales at the time took George under his wing for his protection.

"He then met Beethoven in 1802 and they became really great friends.

"They played a sonata together, but then fell out over a woman, which meant Beethoven changed the dedication to the sonata to Rudolphe Kreutzer, but when Kreutzer received the music he said it was impossible to play, but George Bridgetower and Beethoven had played it together."

Ms Jettoo said of the 60 heritage plaques around Bath only one of them - to Haile Selassie - celebrates the achievements or visit to the city of a black person.

Her petition wording points out that among the plaques, which celebrate people who lived in or visited Bath, there is a plaque to Winston Churchill, who only visited the city for a matter of hours to attend a meeting, whereas Bridgetower played in a momentous concert.

"The petition has been amazing. Overnight it went from 500 signatures to 6,000 and now it's more than 16,000," she said.

"It's about making sure that in Britain there isn't just history, and then black history.

"My aim is to show that those two things are synonymous, that there were black people in Britain before Windrush."

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