Karl Marx on Dean Street: the plaque at number 28
Karl Marx and his family lodged at 28 Dean Street from 1851 to 1856. Today the building is part of Quo Vadis, and the plaque is on the second floor.
By Only Soho Editorial
The short answer to the search: 28 Dean Street is now part of Quo Vadis, the restaurant and members' club, and the blue plaque to Karl Marx is mounted on the second floor above it. Look up, not along. English Heritage describes it as sitting above a restaurant with a black-and-white canopy.
The plaque
It is circular, blue and reads "KARL MARX 1818-1883 lived here 1851-56". The Greater London Council put it up in 1967. English Heritage notes that it is one of a small handful of plaques that say nothing at all about what the person did: a name, dates and "lived here". The plaque went up after an earlier house was demolished and attention turned to number 28, and English Heritage says some people did not welcome it, seeing Marx as too controversial to honour. A Homes & Antiques article asks why a plaque to Marx was destroyed twice, which tells you the argument has never been entirely polite.
Best seen in daylight from the opposite pavement, where you can read the lettering without craning.
Two rooms, a whole household
Marx settled in London in 1849 and stayed until he died in 1883. At 28 Dean Street he worked on the first volume of Das Kapital, according to English Heritage, though its historian Howard Spencer notes that he did most of his reading and writing at the British Museum's Round Reading Room. Spencer writes that the six members of the Marx household lived in shabby rooms on the second floor.
The Survey of London describes the family lodging in two small rooms in number 28, probably on the top floor or second floor, for five and three-quarter years from 1851. London Guided Walks gives the layout as a bedroom at the back and a living-kitchen at the front. The family had come to Dean Street after a brief spell at number 64, now demolished.
It was a hard time. English Heritage says Marx earned a small income as London correspondent of the New York Daily Tribune but often lived in considerable poverty. Prussian spies sent regular reports on the family's life in Dean Street to the Prussian Minister of the Interior, according to London Guided Walks. Children died during these years: English Heritage says two, while Londonist and London Guided Walks say three, so the count depends on how the Dean Street period is reckoned.
The family later left what Londonist calls seedy Soho and moved to north London, near Engels. Marx is buried at Highgate Cemetery.
The building now
The Survey of London says numbers 26 to 28 Dean Street were built around 1734 on building leases granted by the Portland family to John Nolloth, a carpenter. They are now part of Quo Vadis, at 26 to 29 Dean Street. Peppino Leoni, an Italian, founded the restaurant in 1926. In 2012 Sam and Eddie Hart relaunched it with Jeremy Lee in the kitchen, and Lee is now chef proprietor. The restaurant's own About page mentions the Marx connection and a notorious Soho brothel in the building's past.
Quo Vadis serves modern British food. Upstairs there are three private dining rooms on the second floor, and the largest is called the Marx Room. It is a private-hire space, and the club is for members, so for most visitors the view of Marx's building is from the street.
Eating here
Downstairs, you can book a table for lunch or dinner, Monday to Saturday. It is closed on Sundays, and exact times are on the website, so check before you go. Bookings are through the restaurant's website or by phone on 020 7437 9585. OpenTable lists a price band of £26 to £40.
The menu changes daily and has been described as printed like a mock-up broadsheet. Older reviews point to the smoked eel sandwich with pickled red cabbage and the pie of the day. Order the eel sandwich, then walk out and look up at the second floor.
Planning the pilgrimage
- Go in daylight for the plaque, then stay for lunch.
- Dean Street runs from Oxford Street down to Shaftesbury Avenue and crosses Old Compton Street, so the plaque is an easy detour from the rest of Soho.
- For the other half of the story, the British Museum's Reading Room and Highgate Cemetery are on the Marx trail. Londonist and Penguin both publish guides to his London.
Sources worth a read: the English Heritage plaque page, the Survey of London and Quo Vadis's own history.
