If you have a general enquiry or would like to contact the Friends of the Watts Memorial
Please click here to access our online contact form
If you have a media or press enquiry, you may find it quicker to contact Dr John Price, the Chair of the Friends of the Watts Memorial.
Please click here to contact Dr John Price
If you are contacting the Friends regarding a proposal to place a new memorial tablet to the Watts Memorial, please note the following:
In 2010, the four bodies involved in the formal consent process for adding new memorials to the Watts Memorial, the Guild Church Council of St Botolph Aldersgate, the Corporation of London, the Chancellor of the Diocese of London, and the London Diocesan Advisory Committee, adopted a policy that it was no longer appropriate to add further memorials the Watts Memorial. This policy was agreed with the Watts Gallery.
The primary reasons for this decision were:
- The memorial was a personal project by G. F. Watts and his personal influence in the early memorials (and his wife’s influence in the later memorials) is intrinsic to its special interest.
- The memorial was conceived at a time before the modern honours system had been put in place, which now allows for posthumous honours for gallantry.
- The language used to describe the acts of heroism commemorated is of its period which, together with the design of the plaques themselves, is what gives the memorial much of its present-day interest. This would inevitably be diluted by the addition of further plaques.
The Friends of the Watts Memorial is in full support of the 2010 policy, and it agrees entirely that no further tablets should be added to the Watts Memorial other than those that were in the original scheme set out by G. F. Watts.
The Friends of the Watts Memorial fully supports the idea of establishing the whole of Postman’s Park as a Garden of Commemoration for acts of Everyday Heroism; past, present, and future. The Friends fully supports the idea of small modern memorials, similar in design and essence to those on the Watts Memorial, being installed in flowers beds around Postman’s Park.
If you would like to lend your support to the campaign to establish the whole of Postman’s Park as a Garden of Commemoration for acts of Everyday Heroism, please join the Friends and/or send us a message of support via our contact form.