A new memorial in Gordon Square, a bust of  Noor Inayat Khan by Karen Newman, is believed to be the first of an Asian woman in Britain. Princess Anne unveiled the bust on 8 November.  Noor Inayat Khan was born in Moscow, lived as a child in London and France, and in 1942 was living again with her family in Taviton Street, just off Gordon Square.  She was in training as a Special Operations Executive secret agent, known as Nora Baker, before being sent in 1943  into Nazi-occupied France as a radio operator.

In France she was betrayed and finally was shot in September 1944 with three other female agents at Dachau. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross.

University College London, which owns the square, and the local authority, Camden Council, gave permission for the memorial to be sited in the Bloomsbury square near her home, where she spent some rare happy hours of leisure.