'Heroism in Everyday Life': the Watts Memorial for Heroic Self Sacrifice

Fig. 1.

Postman's Park, London EC1, 2004.

Fig. 2.

The Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, 2004.

In the shadow of the Museum of London and a short distance from St Paul's Cathedral there is a small public park containing a striking and evocative example of how the past can survive amidst the infrastructure of modern life. It is known as 'Postman's Park' and is situated just off Aldersgate St, EC1 (Fig. 1). The large building to the south was once the home of the General Post Office and the park became a regular spot for postmen to take their breaks, whence its unusual name. Previously the churchyard of St Botolph's, Aldersgate, the formal public gardens were officially opened by the Lord Mayor on 30 July 1900.¹ Postman's Park is still an oasis of tranquillity in the heart of the City; more notably it contains a cloister with the Watts Memorial for Heroic Self Sacrifice. The opening of this memorial in 1900 realized a hope that the British artist George Frederick Watts had expressed thirteen years earlier. In a letter printed in The Times on 5 September 1887 he had proposed a scheme to commemorate the Queen's forthcoming jubilee.² He suggested that some kind of memorial should be erected to remember people who had lost their lives while performing acts of heroism in everyday life: people and acts that might otherwise be forgotten.

Unfortunately, those planning the jubilee celebrations did not share Watts's vision and his plans for a national monument failed to get off the ground. However, when the opportunity arose in 1898 through an invitation from the vicar of St Botolph's, Watts offered to fund and oversee the construction of such a memorial himself. Work began in 1899 with the construction of a wooden structure designed to offer shelter to bystanders and to protect the tiles from the elements. Approximately fifty feet long and nine feet high, it consisted of a red tiled roof affixed to a supporting wall and held aloft by seven sturdy wooden legs, giving a cloister effect (Fig. 2). Constructed at a cost of £402 by J. Simpson and Son,³ the building would have been a substantial financial outlay for Watts at that time. The wall held a series of record panels, or 'tablets'. Today there are fifty-three in total, spread across two long rows each of twenty-four tablets, which span the length of the cloister wall, and a smaller row of five starting from the left. Each tablet is made up of a number of small glazed tiles and records the name of an individual and the date and details of the incident in which they perished. Illustrated tiles on either side border the record and separate one tablet from another (Fig. 3). The tiles themselves are of some note: those for the first twenty-four tablets were manufactured by the esteemed ceramic designer, William De Morgan.⁴

The earliest recorded incident on the cloister wall concerned Sarah Smith, a pantomime artist who died in 1863 after receiving terrible burns whilst attempting to extinguish the flaming dress of a fellow performer. The records continue through to 1927 and offer an eclectic mix of people and circumstances. The majority of cases featured relate to incidents in the London area as Watts hoped that each town and city would one day develop its own memorial to commemorate its own inhabitants.⁵ In total, sixty-one people are commemorated: eight children, nine women and forty-four men. The ages range from eight (Henry James Bristow) to sixty-one (Daniel Pemberton). All those featured lost their lives while attempting to save others.

Public recognition of acts of heroism has traditionally taken a number of different forms. Testimonials on vellum, engraved items such as watches, state-awarded or private medals and even monetary rewards have all been regarded as fitting methods of recognition. However, when an enduring remembrance of a hero...