THE Wisbech Society has asked for permission to put up a blue plaque to commemorate the life and home of Lilian Ream, a prominent Wisbech photographer,

Cambs Times: Lilian Ream house.Lilian Ream house. (Image: Archant)

The historical group wishes to erect the plaque at No, 4 The Crescent, Wisbech, where she lived and worked between 1909 and 1928.

Lilian Ream ran a number of businesses in Wisbech including the Borough Studio.

She started her photographic career at the age of 17 as an apprentice to Alfred Drysdale, a Wisbech photographer and, after working with a number of other local firms, started her own studio in 1909.

In time she took over the photographic businesses in Wisbech and became a well-known figure in the area until her retirement, at the age of 72, in 1949. The family firm she built continued until 1971 and over this period she amassed somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 photographic negatives, which were acquired by Cambridgeshire Libraries in 1981.

In 1993, Cambridgeshire County Council handed the negatives to the Lilian Ream Exhibition Gallery Trust who have made the collection more accessible to the public.

The social reformer Octavia Hill and Thomas Clarkson, a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire, have both had blue plaques erected in Wisbech in their honour.

A decision will be made in due course.