“Though the Philistines may jostle,You will rank as an apostleIn the high aesthetic band,If you walk down PiccadillyWith a poppy or a lilyIn your medieval hand.”
—W.S. Gilbert, “If you’re anxious for to shine”, from Patience, 1881
POSTMANS’S PARK, THE PUBLIC GARDEN a short walk from St Paul’s Cathedral, was immortalised by the play Closer (and its subsequent film adaptation) as the site of ordinary people remembered for acts of heroism that cost them their lives.
The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, as it is known, commemorates those who died in a variety of ways in attempts, whether successful or in vain, to save others. The idea was that of the painter and sculptor G.F. Watts, who wished to commemorate the valiant deeds of ordinary people who might otherwise have been forgotten.
It is because of this insistence on their being “ordinary” that the lyricist, playwright and poet William Schwenck Gilbert was not included in their number, which is understandable. However, Gilbert’s own death, at the age of 74, was just as deserving of recognition as anything else in his life.
While he and his wife Lucy lived at their Harrow estate, Grim’s Dyke, they often invited local residents to come and swim in their ornamental lake, which Gilbert had extended during their time at the house. On 29 May 1911, Gilbert
