A chef who tried to encourage healthy eating 150 years before Jamie Oliver was honoured with a plaque at his St John's Wood home.
Alexis Soyer one of the greatest 19th century chefs, has been remembered with the unveiling of a green plaque at 28 Marlborough Place.
Mr Soyer set up soup kitchens for the poor across London, even going to Ireland during the potato famine to help feed hundreds of poverty-stricken families.
He worked at the Reform Club, in Pall Mall, Victoria, and always maintained that any leftovers should be given to the poor.
In 1855, Mr Soyer volunteered to cook for soldiers fighting in the Crimean War who were suffering from food poisoning, malnutrition and cholera, working with Florence Nightingale to improve hospital food.
Westminster Council's deputy leader Cllr Robert Davis, who unveiled the plaque, said: "You assume that campaigning chefs are something of a modern phenomenon such as Jamie Oliver and his school dinners campaign, but by recognising this historical figure whose social conscience was so great he put his own life in danger to help others, we're showing that chefs have been famously helping the wider community for a long time historically."
Mr Soyer died in 1858, and was buried with his wife in Kensal Green Cemetery, in Harrow Road, Queen's Park.
