Little-Known London: The Postman’s Park

London is full of statues, memorials, plaques and benches dedicated to long-gone citizens but there’s one remarkable place commemorating a whole group of uncelebrated dead. The Postman’s Park is our capital’s strangest and sweetest monument – a green space dedicated to ordinary people who lost their lives in saving others.

A Garden of Gratitude

The Postman’s Park sits between St. Bart’s hospital and The Museum of London in the centre of the city. It’s on a road rather fittingly called “Little Britain” because that’s exactly what the park celebrates. It is a monument to Britain’s little people and the unrecognised “heroism in every day life”.

The garden was the brain-child of Victorian artist George Frederic Watts, who suggested the idea to The Times as part of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations. The idea was taken up and the park was unveiled in 1900, just a year before the monarch’s death.

The park’s name has nothing to do with the monument but came from the fact workers from the nearby post office liked to sit in the garden during lunch break.

Watts was a bit of a radical when it came to the poor: he was a socialist who had great sympathy for them and their living conditions in London’s slums.

He wanted to highlight the plight of these people who were often met with disdain from higher classes. His idea made them seem not only human but heroic by showing they were capable of great self-sacrifice, which didn’t result from a single disastrous moment but a lifetime of decency.

Noble Deeds

Watts had cut out and collected newspaper stories of heroic acts over the course of his life and it was these clippings that made their way onto the memorial. A total of 62 names and stories are painted onto tiled tablets displayed on a wall sheltered under a simple wooden building.

The tales stretch from 1863-2007 and feature those as young as eight – many of Watts’s heroes are children who died trying to save friends or family. The tablets also give a glimpse into the hazards people faced at the turn of the 20th Century. Most of the disasters came from fire, drowning or accidents on train lines.

Some dangers don’t change; the most recent addition is Leigh Pitt who died saving a nine-year-old boy from drowning in a Thamesmead canal in 2007.

Pitt’s friends and family petitioned for him to be placed in the Postman’s Park. He was the first addition in 78 years but the Diocese of London announced it would be the last. The Diocese sees the monument as Watts’s personal project and thinks it should remain as is.

The man himself would likely disagree; a socialist who painstakingly preserved and lionised acts of self-sacrifice would probably be thrilled that his legacy lived on.

Though the memorial may never grow again, it remains a strange but humbling testament to the selflessness of people that is as relevant today as it was in Victorian times. At the Postman’s Park, Londoners can take a moment of introspection away from a non-stop city that’s quick to forget.

 

by Jo Davey

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