page_title: Postman's Park
section_title: Styles of tiling used on the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice
hierarchical_section_title: Postman's Park / Styles of tiling used on the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice
caption_attribution_description: Memorial plaque on the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, Postman's Park, London. Plaque designed by Royal Doulton. Postman's Park is a park in the City of London, a short distance north of St Paul's Cathedral. Bordered by Little Britain, Aldersgate Street, King Edward Street and the site of the former head office of the General Post Office, it is one of the City of London's largest parks. Opened in 1880 on the site of the former churchyard and burial ground of St Botolph's Aldersgate church, it expanded over the next 20 years to incorporate the adjacent burial grounds of Christ Church Greyfriars and St Leonard, Foster Lane, as well as the site of housing demolished during the widening of Little Britain in 1880, the ownership of which became the subject of a lengthy dispute between the church authorities, the General Post Office, the Treasury, and the City Parochial Foundation. The park takes its name from its popularity with workers at the nearby headquarters of the General Post Office, despite that building's closure in the early 20th century. A shortage of space for burials in London meant that corpses were often laid on the ground and covered over with soil, as a result of which Postman's Park's ground level is significantly higher than that of its surrounding streets. In 1900, the park became the location for George Frederic Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, intended as a memorial to ordinary people who died saving the lives of others and might otherwise have been forgotten, in the form of a loggia and long wall housing ceramic memorial tablets to be designed by William De Morgan. At the time of its opening, only four of the planned 120 memorial tablets were in place, with a further nine tablets added during Watts's lifetime. Following Watts's death in 1904, his wife Mary Watts (née Mary Fraser Tytler) took over the management of the project and oversaw the installation of a further 35 memorial tablets in the following four years, as well as a small monument to Watts. However, disillusioned with the new tile manufacturer Royal Doulton following De Morgan's retirement from the ceramic industry to become a novelist, and with her time and money increasingly occupied by the running of the Watts Gallery, Mary Watts lost interest in the project. Other than a single tablet added to the memorial in 1919, and four tablets added to the memorial in 1930–31, no further tablets were added in Mary Watts's lifetime. As a photograph taken in a public location of hand-painted tiling on permanent public display within the United Kingdom, exempt from copyright under Section 62 of the Copyright Designs &amp; Patents Act 1988.
context_page_description: Postman's Park is a public garden in central London, a short distance north of St Paul's Cathedral. Bordered by Little Britain, Aldersgate Street, St. Martin's Le Grand, King Edward Street, and the site of the former headquarters of the General Post Office, it is one of the largest open spaces in the City of London, the walled city which gives its name to modern London.
  Postman's Park opened in 1880 on the site of the former churchyard and burial ground of St Botolph's Aldersgate church and expanded over the next 20 years to incorporate the adjacent burial grounds of Christ Church Greyfriars and St Leonard, Foster Lane, together with the site of housing demolished during the widening of Little Britain in 1880; the ownership of the last location became the subject of a lengthy dispute between the church authorities, the General Post Office, the Treasury, and the City Parochial Foundation. A shortage of space for burials in London meant that corpses were often laid on the ground and covered over with soil, thus elevating the park above the streets which surround it.
context_section_description: The tablets are arranged on the second, third and fourth of the five rows, with 24 tablets to William De Morgan's original design in the third, central, row, the 24 tablets added in 1908 directly below in the fourth row, and more recent additions above the original tiles in the second row. The first and fifth of the five rows remain empty. The first four tablets, designed and manufactured by De Morgan and installed in 1900, were each made from two large custom-made tiles. Nine further De Morgan tablets, installed in 1902, were made using standard tiles to reduce costs, and were the last tiles whose installation was overseen by Watts. Eleven further De Morgan tablets, along with T. H. Wren's memorial to Watts, were added in 1905, completing the central row of tablets. All 24 tablets of the 4th row, designed and manufactured by Royal Doulton, were added as a single batch in August 1908. A single Royal Doulton tablet to PC Alfred Smith was added in June 1919, followed in October 1930 by similar Royal Doulton tablets to three further police officers, and a replacement tablet with the correct details of the East Ham Sewage Works incident of 1895. A single tablet made by Fred Passenger in the original De Morgan style, honouring schoolboy Herbert Maconoghu, was added in April 1931 to fill the gap in the centre row left by the removal of the original, incorrect tablet to the victims of the East Ham Sewage Works incident. In 2009 a 54th tablet was added, in the style of the Royal Doulton tiles, to commemorate print technician Leigh Pitt, the first addition to the wall for 78 years.
caption: 1931
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