In February 2025, Studio Voltaire and the London LGBT+ Forums’ Network unveiled London’s newest Rainbow Plaque in Warwick Avenue, Westminster honouring groundbreaking journalist, broadcaster, actor and lesbian rights activist Jackie Forster (aka Jacqueline MacKenzie, 1926–98).

Rainbow Plaques is an ongoing programme led by Studio Voltaire and the London LGBT+ Forums’ Network, which identifies hidden and lost LGBTQIA+ heritage whilst highlighting the importance of intersectional queer visibility in our streets and public spaces. 

Jackie Forster was a true trailblazer, paving the way for LGBTQIA+ people, specifically lesbians, through her pioneering work. Forster became one of the few well-known lesbians in mainstream broadcast media in the 1970s and worked to raise the public profile of lesbian activism in the UK. She began her career as a journalist and visual presenter under her maiden name, Jacqueline MacKenzie, in the early days of 1950s TV, reporting on the UK, Europe, Russia, Canada and the USA. Known for her lively delivery and sharp wit, she was a TV favourite with producers and viewers alike and went on to win the Prix d’Italia in 1956 for her coverage of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier’s wedding. Forster’s appearances as a presenter and interviewer on mainstream news programmes made her a recognised public figure, and she continued to write as a freelance journalist for another thirty years. In 1969, Forster ‘came out’ publicly as a lesbian when she joined the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE).

After her celebrated acting and broadcasting career under her name Jacqueline MacKenzie, she joined the Minorities Research Group and wrote for the lesbian journal Arena Three, the first lesbian magazine in Britain, which ran from 1964-71. In 1971 Forster co-founded the hugely influential social group and lesbian publication Sappho, which offered a safe forum and queer space for women marginalised by society, working at the intersection of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Gay Liberation Front. She also instigated a campaign to help lesbians become mothers through artificial insemination by donor (AID), connecting Sappho's readers with doctors willing to perform IVF by donor and remained a champion of lesbian motherhood. 

After Sappho, Forster became a Greater London Council's Women's Committee member and became curator for the Lesbian Archive. In her 70s, she founded Daytime Dykes, a social group whose focus was visiting museums and places of interest in London, especially those connected to women in general and lesbians in particular. In 1997, a BBC film crew invited Forster to film a programme about her life as part of The Day That Changed My Life documentary series. From 1992 until her death in 1998, Forster was an active member of the Lesbian Archive and Information Centre Management Committee, now part of the Glasgow Women's Library. 

This plaque was selected from public nominations by the Rainbow Plaque panel and is the fourth of five new plaques being installed across London since 2023. The plaque is installed at Forster’s former home in Warwick Avenue, where she lived for twenty-one years until her death, and was unveiled in February 2025 in the presence of her family, friends, former co-workers and activists.

This Rainbow Plaque is supported by The Mayor of London’s Untold Stories Fund as part of his Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm, with additional support from Wandsworth Oasis.

Visiting Information

46 Warwick Avenue, London W9 2PU
The closest Tube is Warwick Avenue on the Bakerloo Line (4 minutes walk).

Access Information

The artwork can be viewed at street level from the pavement.