A memorial for unsung heroes
After a few days sightseeing in London, you can get tired of monuments. On all sides, military heroes and empire-builders look down with a firm gaze from their plinths, and kings who deserve to be forgotten are honoured with statues. For the democratically minded visitor, a small garden near St Paul’s Cathedral makes a refreshing change from this.
The artist George Frederic Watts (1817–1904) had been campaigning for a monument to unknown heroes for 30 years before his plan was fulfilled in July 1900. The first proposal for a site, Hyde Park, was rejected, and finally a decision was made in favour of a small green space laid out in 1880 on the site of an old cemetery. It was called Postman’s Park because workers from the nearby General Post Office liked to spend their lunchtime there.
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Address King Edward Street, EC1A 4EU | Public Transport St Paul’s (Central Line) | Hours Mon–Sun 8am–7pm or until dusk| Tip 100 metres away at the corner of Newgate Street, the site of a bombed-out church, Christchurch Newgate, has been transformed into a fragrant flower garden.
Watts’ »memorial to heroic self-sacrifice« is a modest shelter built onto a wall with space for 120 tiles in five rows. Hand-painted ceramic plaques tell the story of ordinary people who gave their lives for others. A worker in a sugar refinery suffered fatal burns searching for a colleague after a boiler explosion. A railwayman drowned in the River Lea while trying to save someone who had fallen in. A 17-year-old girl protected a child from a runaway horse but died of her own injuries. One hero prevented the suicide of a »lunatic woman« at Woolwich and was run over by a train. Another died of exhaustion after rescuing people from the ice on Highgate ponds.
The people commemorated on the first 13 plaques, the beautiful turquoise-coloured tiles in the middle row, were chosen by Watts himself. The great ceramics designer William de Morgan made these tiles. In the 30 years after Watts’ death, his widow added a further 40 plaques in blue lettering with floral decoration. The most recent dates from 2009, and two of the five rows are still empty. A relief in the first row honours Watts himself.
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