G F Watts Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice - Postmans Park, London, UK
N 51° 31.010 W 000° 05.872
30U E 701351 N 5711294
Postmans Park lies between Aldersgate Street and King Edward Street to the south of the Museum of London. In a shady corner, near the north side of the park, is the G F Watts's Memorial to Self Sacrifice.
Waymark Code: WMK9JY
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/05/2014
Views: 6
The Memorial contains over 50 individual memorials to individuals that lost their life whilst trying to same someone else. All the memorial are decorated tiles that have been specially made to be placed in this location. The main memorial reads:
G F Watts's Memorial
to Heoric Self Sacrifice
Unveiled in 1900, the memorial to heroic self sacrifice was
conceived and undertaken by the Victorian artist
George Frederic Watts OM RA (1817-1904)
It contains plaques to those who have heroically lost
their lives trying to save another.
Watts believed that these everyday heroes provided
models of exemplary behaviour and character.
"The material prosperity of a nation is not an abiding
possession: the deeds of its people are" - G F Watts
"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his
life for his friends" - John 15:13
Watts Gallery Compton Surrey
The Watts Gallery website tells us:
In 1887 Watts wrote to The Times proposing a project to mark Queen Victoria's Jubilee of that year. He believed that stories of heroism could uplift and stimulate and should therefore be commemorated. As his idea was not taken up he created the memorial himself in the form of a 50ft long open gallery situated in the public gardens on the site of the former churchyard of St. Botolph, Aldersgate.
On the southern boundary lay the General Post Office and many postmen spent their breaks there, hence the inevitable name by which it became known. Along the walls of the gallery Watts placed tablets, each describing acts of bravery that resulted in the loss of the hero or heroine's life.?The tablets consist of a number of ceramic tiles, initially manufactured by William De Morgan and later by Doulton of Lambeth, with an inscription and appropriate decorative motifs.
Following the original 13 tablets that Watts erected, Mary added a further 34 after his death. The stories that the tablets tell are touching, often involving children and usually concerning fire, drowning or train accidents. In Watts's letter to The Times proposing the idea, he drew upon the plight of poor Alice Ayres, her inscription finally read ‘daughter of a bricklayer's labourer, who by intrepid conduct saved three children from a burning house in Union Street, Borough, at the cost of her own young life. April 24 1885.’