Sardar Patel Blue Plaque

The blue plaque on the wall of twenty-three Aldridge Road Villas marks the London residence of Vallabhbhai Patel, the man who would eventually earn the title Iron Man of India. Patel arrived here in September nineteen ten at thirty-six years old, a mature student who had saved for years while working as a lawyer in India to fund his legal training at the Middle Temple. He lived in this house, then a moderately priced boarding house, while he committed himself to a remarkably spartan routine. Each morning, he walked four and a half miles from this doorstep to the Inns of Court, spending his days immersed in the law library until it closed, subsisting on little more than bread, milk, and tea. His discipline was such that he completed a standard three-year law course in just thirty months, topping his class and earning a prize for his performance before returning to India in nineteen thirteen to help lead the struggle for independence. The plaque you see is a replica, installed in nineteen ninety-one after the original, erected in nineteen eighty-six, was damaged during building renovations.