London is agreencity , with more than3,000 park , covering 18 pct of its full area . One of those parks , just north of St. Paul ’s Cathedral , is a fiddling more unparalleled than most . ThePostman ’s Park Memorial to Heroic Self - Sacrifice , also known as the Watts Memorial , is a little garden that pays homage to ordinary the great unwashed who heroically gave their lives to carry through someone else .
The Evolution of the Memorial
ab initio , the car park was just a small burying ground off St. Botolph ’s Church . Due to an overcrowding of headstones , thegraves were clearedto make elbow room for a small garden and green . The green ’s name came from the mail carrier of the nearby General Post Office headquarters who hang out at the park during their lunchtime .
ArtistGeorge Frederic Wattsdecided to make a monument in the commons to those that had lose their living heroically . He wrote a letter of the alphabet to The Times declare oneself the memorial in September 1887 . He wanted to bring attention to the daily last ofLondon ’s work class while honoringQueen Victoria ’s then - upcoming Golden Jubilee .
In his proposal letter , he used the story ofAlice Ayres , a servant girl who save her three niece from a fervidness on Union Street in 1885 , as an example of the type of ego - sacrificial acts that he hoped to highlight and immortalise . nigh 10 years after his original proposal , Watts received a section of Postman ’s Park for his memorial .
Half the Plaques Remain Blank
At the debut in 1900 , the park contained only four memorial tablet that had been nail and installed . Watts was gravely sick , so he was ineffective to go to the unveiling . After Watts in person opt and fund the first few memorial tablet , a committee was formed at St. Botolph ’s Church to pick out the next ones . entry required the person to be from London , and the act of self - forfeit must ’ve happened during the reign of Queen Victoria .
The unseasonable dying of Watts and the mop up of ceramicistWilliam De Morgan ’s pottery created several delays in the instalment of memorial tablet , though new ones were bring every few years . Out of 120 potential plaques , to this twenty-four hours , only 54 have been installed .
The plaque memorialize people range from those who saved victims of shipwrecks , train fire and drownings , to a young lady who salvage her sister from a burning planetary house . One take , " Soloman Galaman , aged 11 , die of accidental injury September 6 1901 , after saving his picayune brother from being run over on Commercial Street . Mother I saved him , but I could not keep myself . "
The last one set up , 78 years after the first plaque went in , was in 2009 , for printworkerLeigh Pitt , who leap in the Thamesmead Canal to lay aside a male child from drowning and died during the attempt .
An informational plaque at the park reads , " Watts trust that these ' everyday ' heroes provided mannikin of typic behavior and character . The material successfulness of a res publica is not an endure possession : the deeds of its the great unwashed are . "
