Postman's Park - The Memorial To Heroic Self Sacrifice

The Memorial To Heroic Self Sacrifice

In 1898 a friend of Watts suggested to Henry Gamble, Vicar of St Botolph's Aldersgate, that should the church manage to purchase the land owned by the CPF it would make a suitable site for Watts's memorial. Watts was approached, and agreed to the suggestion. On 13 October 1898 the appeal was relaunched, with the proposal that if the remaining £3,000 were raised, Watts would design and build a covered way, which in due course would be lined with memorial tablets to commemorate the bravery of ordinary people. Watts planned to build a covered way around three sides of a quadrangle, with the roof supported on stone or timber columns.

The MPGA were not consulted about the proposal, and the following week Lord Meath wrote to The Times and the City Press to complain about the scheme. He argued that the MPGA had devoted large amounts of time and money to prevent the park from being built on, and that while Watts's proposal was "worthy of all encouragement and support", Postman's Park, at less than an acre and surrounded by tall buildings, was an inappropriate site. The three-sided design was abandoned, in favour of a 50-foot (15 m) long and 9-foot (2.7 m) tall wooden loggia with a tiled roof, designed by Ernest George. The supporting wall contained space for 120 memorial tablets. St Botolph's Aldersgate secured the necessary funds to complete the purchase of the CPF land, and Watts agreed to pay the £700 (about £58,000 as of 2013) construction costs himself.

Work began in 1899, and on 30 July 1900 the newly reunified park and Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice (also known as the Wall of Heroes) were unveiled by Alfred Newton, Lord Mayor of London, and Mandell Creighton, Bishop of London. A short service was held in St Botolph's Aldersgate, after which a short speech was given by Creighton in which he observed that:

It was a good thing that the multitude who took their recreation in this open space should have some great thoughts on which to fix their hearts, some inscriptions before their eyes recalling to them the things which had been done by those who did their duty bravely, simply and straightforwardly in the place where God had placed them. Such were, indeed, the salt of the earth, and it was by producing characters such as theirs that a nation waxed strong.

Watts himself, by now 83 years old, was too ill to attend the ceremony, and was represented by Mary Watts.