Culture : Many Are Named, Few Chosen for Blue Plaques : The commemorative Wedgwood seals adorn homes in London where the famous once lived. But some famous may not be famous enough to warrant such a historic tribute.

What do Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Karl Marx, Mark Twain and Winston Churchill have in common with John Logie Baird, Hugh Price Hughes, Olive Schreiner and Albert Chevalier?

Answer: They are all considered important enough by English Heritage to have the London houses where they once lived adorned with commemorative Wedgwood-blue plaques.

As that list suggests, your name doesn’t have to be a household word to merit the attention of the conservative commission, whose list of blue plaques represents the English equivalent of the American “George Washington Slept Here” type of fame.

Few are unfamiliar with composer Mozart, Communist philosopher Marx, American author Twain and British Prime Minister Churchill. But the others? (Baird first demonstrated television in his house. Hughes was a 19th-Century Methodist preacher. Schreiner was a turn-of-the-century author and Chevalier a music hall comedian.)

A new edition of “The Blue Plaque Guide” lists about 600 seals affixed to London residences and provides visitors with a key to finding the homes of favorite personalities who contributed to the rich history of the capital by making it their permanent or temporary home.

As Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, chairman of English Heritage, noted: “T. S. Eliot’s last home in Kensington, the birthplace of Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, the small flat overlooking the Thames where Jerome K. Jerome wrote ‘Three Men in a Boat,’ the home of the great clown Grimaldi in Exmouth Market, the house where Jawaharlal Nehru stayed when a student at the Inner Temple and the family hotel where French novelist Emile Zola lived when in exile as a result of the Dreyfus affair--all have a fascination which only an association with the famous can give them, and all are now distinguished by the familiar circular blue-and-white plaque.”

English Heritage is actually a relative latecomer as guardian of a tradition that began when the Royal Society of Arts decided back in 1867 to mount the first commemorative plaque at Lord Byron’s birthplace in Holles Street--a building since demolished.

Responsibility for selecting recipients of the blue seals shifted in 1901 to the London County Council, and the first building it marked was also subsequently torn down. That was Holly Lodge in the Kensington district, once home of historian Thomas Macaulay.

In 1965, the Greater London Council took over the program. Then, in 1985, the selection was given to English Heritage.

The names on the ubiquitous blue plaques contain a particularly heavy dose of writers and poets--from Matthew Arnold and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Evelyn Waugh and Virginia Wolfe. But they also include British and foreign statecraft (Benjamin Disraeli, Prince von Metternich, David Ben-Gurion), science (Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud), the military (Field Marshal Allenby, Charles de Gaulle), theater and the arts (Lillie Langtry, George Bernard Shaw, Vincent Van Gogh).

Among famous Americans honored are Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving and Samuel Morse.

In some cases the plaques mark historic sites: The Railway Bridge, Grove Street, Bow, bears the inscription: “The First Flying Bomb on London Fell Here 13 June 1944.”

Any member of the public is invited to suggest candidates for a plaque to English Heritage. But while many are nominated, few are chosen--only about a dozen a year.

So what makes a person plaque-worthy?

Victor Belcher, the historian who heads English Heritage’s department supervising the blue plaques, says the first qualification is that at least 20 years must have passed since the death of a candidate or 100 years since the nominee’s birth.

“At one point, we dropped the requirement to 10 years,” said Belcher, sitting in his cluttered office overlooking London’s busy Regent Street. “But we decided 20 years was more suitable in assessing the historical position of anyone to ensure their fame is lasting.”

Next, Belcher said, candidates must be eminent in their field, must have made an “important contribution to human welfare or happiness,” or must otherwise deserve recognition for their accomplishments.

A key factor in selection is that the actual building in which the candidate lived must still stand.

“It can take some time and effort to establish that the person actually lived in a specific building, particularly since so many houses have been demolished, as well as street names and addresses changed over the years,” Belcher said.

After a candidate is chosen, the current house owners must agree to have a plaque affixed to the building’s facade. Very few householders say no, Belcher said. When they do, it’s mainly because they are afraid their privacy might be invaded.

About 60 new candidates for blue plaques are submitted each year to English Heritage, said Belcher, but at least one-third do not qualify, either because of the 20-year rule or because no former residence remains.

The names are considered by a team of researchers to make sure the residences are legitimate. Candidates that survive the test are evaluated by a committee of historical experts who winnow the list to about 15 names--a manageable work load, Belcher said, while maintaining the quality of those honored. Names that fail to make the rigorous cut may not be reconsidered for 10 years.

“That’s the toughest job I have,” observed Belcher, “notifying the proposers that their candidates have not made the short list.”

Belcher is happy that many of the successful candidates are not household names, declaring, “The idea is to include deserving people not so well known.” A current Belcher favorite, approved last year, is David Edward Hughes, inventor of the microphone.

There has also been a move in recent years to include more women, like Sylvia Pankhurst, a campaigner for women’s rights; Mary Seacole, the Jamaica-born heroine nurse of the Crimean War, and Rosaline Franklin, who conducted X-ray experiments in the work leading to the discovery of DNA.

Once a candidate is chosen, the brief inscription on the 20-inch plaque is approved at English Heritage (they once got the dates wrong on a Lloyd George plaque). It is then sent to Alan Dawson, a ceramic craftsman in Staffordshire for firing the glazed earthenware. The cost of the ceramic is about $750, and it costs another $400-$500 to install it.

Over the years, the base color of the plaques has changed. It was first dark blue, then brown until English Heritage settled on a lighter blue with elegantly shaped white lettering.

Installation of the plaques can be a major occasion in itself. Ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was happy to unveil a plaque for Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit in Parliament. The Queen Mother did the honors for P. G. Wodehouse, one of her favorite authors.

Currently, Belcher has a plaque to be installed at the house where actor Charles Laughton lived with actress Elsa Lanchester. He’s waiting for actor Simon Callow to arrange an unveiling party.

Plaque nominations occasionally trigger controversy. U.S. poet and fascist sympathizer Ezra Pound was turned down because of his wartime pro-Nazi record. As the London Evening Standard said: “Had Pound had his way, there wouldn’t be much of an English Heritage left to commemorate.”

When American poet Sylvia Plath, who committed suicide at her house in Primrose Hill, was bypassed because her slender body of work was yet to be historically assessed, feminist historian Ruth Richardson condemned the decision in an article in the London Times’ literary supplement. That generated many letters of complaint to English Heritage.

“I still think our decision was correct,” Belcher said.

“All in all,” he summed up, “I get a great deal of satisfaction doing this work because these plaques give a lot of people much pleasure. They like to walk around town with the guide in their hands.

“Many get a frisson of excitement when passing a perfectly ordinary house on a perfectly ordinary street and see a plaque indicating that, say, Dylan Thomas lived there, and say to themselves: ‘He walked in and out of that front door. My goodness!’ ”