Alice Ayres
Encyclopedia
Alice Ayres was an English nursemaid
honoured for her bravery in rescuing the children in her care from a house fire. Ayres was a household assistant
and nursemaid to the family of her brother-in-law and sister, Henry and Mary Ann Chandler. The Chandlers owned an oil and paint shop in Union Street, Southwark
, then just south of London, and Ayres lived with the family above the shop. In 1885 fire broke out in the shop, and Ayres rescued three of her nieces from the burning building, before falling from a window and suffering fatal injury.
Britain, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution
, experienced a period of great social change in which the rapidly growing news media paid increasing attention to the activities of the poorer classes. The manner of Ayres' death caused great public interest, with large numbers of people attending her funeral and contributing to the funding of a memorial. Shortly after her death, she underwent what has been described as a "secular canonisation
", being widely depicted in popular culture and, although very little was known about her life, widely cited as a role model. Various social and political movements promoted Ayres as an example of the values held by their particular movement. The circumstances of her death were distorted to give the impression that she was an employee willing to die for the sake of her employer's family, rather than for children to whom she was closely related. In 1902 her name was added to the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice and in 1936 a street near the scene of the fire was renamed Ayres Street in her honour.
The case of Alice Ayres came to renewed public notice with the release of Patrick Marber
's 1997 play Closer
, and the 2004 film
based on it. An important element of the plot revolves around a central character who fabricates her identity based on the description of Ayres on the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, with some of the film's key scenes shot around the memorial.
.
In 1881 Ayres worked as a household assistant
to Edward Woakes, a doctor specialising in ear and throat disorders. By 1885 she had become a household assistant and nursemaid
to the Chandlers, living with the family. After her death, Ayres was described by a local resident as "not one of your fast sort—gentle and quiet-spoke, and always busy about her work". Another neighbour told the press that "no merry making, no excursion, no family festivity could tempt her from her self-imposed duties. The children must be bathed and put to bed, the clothes must be mended, the rooms must be 'tidied up', the cloth must be laid, the supper carefully prepared, before Alice would dream of setting forth on her own pleasures".
and the emergency services were quickly on scene, by the time the fire engine arrived intense flames were coming from the lower windows, making it impossible for the fire brigade to position ladders. Meanwhile Ayres, wearing only a nightdress, had tried to reach her sister but was unable to get to her through the smoke. The crowd that had gathered outside the building were shouting to Ayres to jump. Instead she returned to the room she shared with the three young girls and threw a mattress out of the window, carefully dropping Edith onto it. Despite further calls from below to jump and save herself, she left the window and returned carrying Ellen. Ellen clung to Ayres and refused to be dropped, but Ayres threw her out of the building, and the child was caught by a member of the crowd. Ayres went back into the smoke a third time and returned carrying badly injured Elizabeth, whom she dropped safely onto the mattress.
After rescuing the three girls, Ayres tried to jump herself, but overcome by smoke inhalation, fell limply from the window, striking the projecting shop sign. She missed the mattress and the crowd below and fell onto the pavement, suffering spinal injuries. Ayres was rushed to nearby Guy's Hospital
where, because of the public interest that her story excited, hourly bulletins were issued about her health and Queen Victoria
sent a lady-in-waiting
to enquire after her condition.
The oil and paint stored in the shop caused the fire to burn out of control, and when the fire services were eventually able to enter the premises the rest of the family were found dead. The body of Henry Chandler was found on the staircase, still clutching a locked strongbox filled with the shop's takings, while the badly burnt remains of Mary Ann Chandler were found lying next to a first floor window, the body of six-year-old Henry by her side. Ayres's condition deteriorated and she died in Guy's Hospital on 1885. Her last words were reported as "I tried my best and could try no more". Elizabeth, the last of the children to be rescued, had suffered severe burns to her legs and died shortly after Ayres.
-controlled Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire
(today the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire), who awarded her father John Ayres a sum of 10 guineas
(about £ as of ) in her honour. A memorial service for Ayres at St Saviour's Church
(now Southwark Cathedral) attracted such a large crowd that mourners were turned away due to lack of standing room, while a collection taken at the memorial service comprised 951 coins, totalling over £7. Ayres was given a large public funeral, attended by over 10,000 mourners. Her coffin was carried from her parents' house to her grave in Isleworth Cemetery
by a team of 16 firemen, relieving each other in sets of four. The church service was attended by a group of 20 girls, dressed in white, from the village school that Ayres had attended. It had been planned that the girls should follow the coffin to the graveside and sing, but a severe hailstorm prevented this.
Henry and Mary Ann Chandler were buried in Lambeth Cemetery
along with the two children who had died in the fire. Edith and Ellen Chandler were accepted by the Orphan Working School in Kentish Town
and trained as domestic servants.
, which had been raised in central London in 1878. It took the form of a 14 feet (4.3 m) solid red granite
obelisk
, and is still today the tallest grave marker in the cemetery. On the front of the obelisk is inscribed The right hand side of the monument lists the ten members of the Alice Ayres Memorial Committee, chaired by Rev H. W. P. Richards. The Union Street fire and Ayres's rescue of the children caused great public interest from the outset, and the fire, Ayres's death and funeral, and the fundraising for and erection of the memorial were all reported in detail in the local and national press and throughout the British Empire
.
attitudes towards the accomplishments of the lower classes were changing. The growth of the railways, the mechanisation of agriculture and the need for labour in the new inner-city factories had broken the traditional feudal economy and caused the rapid growth of cities, while increasing literacy rates led to a greater interest in the media and current affairs among ordinary workers. In 1856 the first military honour for bravery open to all ranks, the Victoria Cross
, had been instituted, while in 1866 the Albert Medal
, the first official honour open to civilians of all classes, was introduced. Additionally, a number of private and charitable organisations dedicated to lifesaving, most prominently the Royal Humane Society
(1776) and Royal National Lifeboat Institution
(1824), were increasing in activity and prominence, and gave awards and medals as a means of publicising their activities and lifesaving advice.
Painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts
and his second wife, designer and artist Mary Fraser Tytler
, had long been advocates of the idea of art as a force for social change, and of the principle that narratives of great deeds would provide guidance to address the serious social problems of British cities. Watts had recently painted a series of portraits of leading figures he considered to be a positive social influence, the "Hall of Fame", which was donated to the National Portrait Gallery; since at least 1866 he had proposed as a companion piece a monument to "unknown worth", celebrating the bravery of ordinary people.
On 5 September 1887, a letter was published in The Times from Watts, proposing a scheme to commemorate the Golden Jubilee
of Queen Victoria by means of collecting and commemorating "a complete record of the stories of heroism in every-day life". He cited the death of Alice Ayres as an example of the type of event he proposed to commemorate, and included in his letter a distorted account of Ayres's actions during the Union Street fire.
Watts had originally proposed that the monument take the form of a colossal bronze figure, but by 1887 was proposing that the memorial take the form of "a kind of Campo Santo
", consisting of a covered way and marble wall inscribed with the names of everyday heroes, to be built in Hyde Park
. Watts's suggestion was not taken up, leading Watts to comment that "if I had proposed a race course round Hyde Park, there would have been plenty of sympathisers". However, his high profile lobbying further raised the already high public awareness of the death of Alice Ayres.
wrote perhaps the first poem about Ayres, titled Alice Ayres, which she recited at a social gathering in June 1885. Sir Francis Hastings Doyle
also wrote a well-received poem in honour of Ayres, as did leading social reformer and women's rights campaigner Laura Ormiston Chant
. By the late 1880s Ayres was coming to be seen as a model of British devotion to duty, and her story was told in collections of heroic and inspirational stories for children, including as the first story in F. J. Cross's influential Beneath the Banner, in which Cross remarked that: "She had tried to do her best always. Her loving tenderness to the children committed to her care and her pure gentle life were remarked by those around her before there was any thought of her dying a heroic death. So, when the great trial came, she was prepared; and what seems to us Divine unselfishness appeared to her but simple duty."
In 1890 a series of painted panels by Walter Crane
were unveiled in Octavia Hill
's Red Cross Hall, 550 yards (502.9 m) from the site of the Union Street fire. Inspired by George Frederic Watts's proposals, the panels depicted instances of heroism in everyday life; Watts himself refused to become involved in the project, as his proposed monument was intended to be a source of inspiration and contemplation as opposed to simply commemoration, and he felt that an artistic work would potentially distract viewers from the most important element of the cases, the heroic sacrifices of the individuals involved.
The first of Price's panels depicted the Union Street fire. It is an idealised image depicting Ayres as the rescued rather than the rescuer, blending religious imagery with traditional 19th-century symbols of British heroism, and bears no relationship to actual events. Ayres, in a long and flowing pure white gown, stands at a first floor window, surrounded in flames and holding a small child. A fireman stands on a ladder and reaches out to Ayres and the child; meanwhile, a sailor in full Royal Navy
uniform holds a second child. Although in reality Ayres had been at a much higher level of the building and the heat of the burning oil and gunpowder had made it impossible for the fire brigade to approach the building, by depicting Ayres with the fireman and sailor, widely seen as symbols of British heroism and British strength, Price's picture further enhanced her growing reputation as a heroic figure. Price's picture in the Red Cross Hall was itself mentioned in Alice Ayres, a border ballad
by National Trust
founder Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley
published in his 1896 Ballads of Brave Deeds, for which George Frederic Watts wrote the preface.
. St Botolph's former churchyard
had recently been converted, along with two smaller adjoining burial grounds, into Postman's Park
, one of the largest public parks in the City of London, and the church was engaged in a protracted financial and legal dispute over ownership of part of the park. To provide a public justification for keeping the disputed land as part of the park, and to raise the park's profile and assist in fundraising, the church offered part of the park as a site for his proposed memorial. Watts agreed, and in 1900 the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice was unveiled by Alfred Newton, Lord Mayor of London, and Mandell Creighton
, Bishop of London
. The Memorial consisted of a 50 feet (15.2 m) long and 9 feet (2.7 m) tall wooden loggia
with a tiled roof, designed by Ernest George
, sheltering a wall with space for 120 ceramic memorial tablets.
The memorial tablets were hand made and expensive to produce, and at the time of the Memorial's unveiling only four were in place. In 1902 a further nine tablets were unveiled, including the memorial to Alice Ayres for which Watts had long lobbied. Made by William De Morgan
in the Arts and Crafts
style, the green-and-white tablet reads "Alice Ayres, daughter of a bricklayer's labourer who by intrepid conduct saved 3 children from a burning house in Union Street, Borough, at the cost of her own young life April 24, 1885".
, Grace Darling
, and Florence Nightingale
, the ongoing coverage of Ayres and her elevation as a national hero was unusual for the period. Ayres was an uneducated working class woman, who after her death underwent what has been described as "a secular canonisation", at a time when, despite the gradual formal recognition of the contributions of the lower classes, national heroes were generally male and engaged in exploration, the military, religion or science and engineering.
This was a period in which political pressures for social reform were growing. The version of Ayres presented to the public as a woman devoted entirely to duty embodied the idealised British character at the time, while the image of a hard working but uncomplaining woman who set the welfare of others above her own embodied the idealised vision of the working class presented by social reformers, and the ideal selfless and dedicated woman presented by campaigners for women's rights. At the unveiling of the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice the Lord Mayor, Alfred Newton, had remarked that it was "intended to perpetuate the acts of heroism which belonged to the working classes", while George Frederic Watts, although he was opposed in principle to discrimination based on class and saw the Memorial as being theoretically open to all classes, had remarked that "the higher classes do not or ought not to require reminders or inducements". Watts saw the purpose of his Memorial not as a commemoration of deeds, but as a tool for the education of the lower classes.
Watts's view was shared by others who sought to provide inspirational material on British heroes, and authors writing about Ayres systematically altered the fact that the children rescued were members of her family, instead describing them as the children of her employer. Press reports at the time of the fire described Ayres variously as a "little nursemaid", "a willing, honest, hard-working servant", and a "poor little domestic". As well as Watts's 1887 description of Ayres as "the maid of all work at an oilmonger's", Cross's chapter on Ayres in Beneath the Banner is titled "Only a Nurse Girl!", while Rawnsley called her "the nursemaid in the household". Barrington, writing five years after the fire at the unveiling of Price's panel, acknowledges in a footnote that Ayres was related to the Chandlers, but nonetheless describes her as displaying the "typical English virtues—courage, fortitude, and an unquestioning sense of duty".
While George and Mary Watts and their fellow paternalist
social reformers, along with the broadly sympathetic mainstream British press, portrayed Ayres as an inspirational selfless servant to her employer, others had a different view. The left-wing Reynolds Weekly Newspaper
complained that the lack of support for Ayres's family from the state was symbolic of poor treatment of workers as a whole. The pioneering feminist periodical The Englishwoman's Review
described their "righteous pride" at Ayres's "instinctive motherhood"; on the other hand Young England
, an imperialist children's story paper
, said that "there is no sex in self-sacrifice", lauding Ayres as a model of devotion to duty.
administration of the London County Council
renamed White Cross Street, near the site of the Red Cross Hall and the scene of the Union Street fire, to Ayres Street in tribute to Alice Ayres, a name it retains today. The Chandlers' house at 194 Union Street no longer stands, and the site is occupied by part of the Union House office complex; immediately opposite the site of the fire is the present-day headquarters of the London Fire Brigade
.
Alice Ayres came to renewed public notice with the release of the 1997 play Closer
by Patrick Marber
and the 2004 BAFTA Award
- and Golden Globe
-winning film Closer
based on it starring Natalie Portman
, Julia Roberts
, Jude Law
and Clive Owen
. A key plot element revolves around the memorial tablet to Ayres in Postman's Park, in which it is revealed that the character Jane Jones (played by Portman in the film), who calls herself Alice Ayres for most of the story, has in fact fabricated her identity based on the tablet on the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, which she reads at the time of her first meeting with Dan Woolf (played by Jude Law in the film) at the beginning of the action. The park, and the memorial to Ayres, feature prominently in the opening and closing scenes of the film.
Nursemaid
A nursemaid or nursery maid, is mostly a historical term of employment for a female servant in an elite household. In the 21st century, the position is largely defunct, owing to the relatively small number of households who maintain large staffs with the traditional hierarchy.The nursery maid...
honoured for her bravery in rescuing the children in her care from a house fire. Ayres was a household assistant
Domestic worker
A domestic worker is a man, woman or child who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to cleaning and household maintenance, known as housekeeping...
and nursemaid to the family of her brother-in-law and sister, Henry and Mary Ann Chandler. The Chandlers owned an oil and paint shop in Union Street, Southwark
Southwark
Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
, then just south of London, and Ayres lived with the family above the shop. In 1885 fire broke out in the shop, and Ayres rescued three of her nieces from the burning building, before falling from a window and suffering fatal injury.
Britain, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, experienced a period of great social change in which the rapidly growing news media paid increasing attention to the activities of the poorer classes. The manner of Ayres' death caused great public interest, with large numbers of people attending her funeral and contributing to the funding of a memorial. Shortly after her death, she underwent what has been described as a "secular canonisation
Canonization
Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
", being widely depicted in popular culture and, although very little was known about her life, widely cited as a role model. Various social and political movements promoted Ayres as an example of the values held by their particular movement. The circumstances of her death were distorted to give the impression that she was an employee willing to die for the sake of her employer's family, rather than for children to whom she was closely related. In 1902 her name was added to the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice and in 1936 a street near the scene of the fire was renamed Ayres Street in her honour.
The case of Alice Ayres came to renewed public notice with the release of Patrick Marber
Patrick Marber
Patrick Albert Crispin Marber is an English comedian, playwright, director, puppeteer, actor and screenwriter.-Early life and education:...
's 1997 play Closer
Closer (play)
Closer is the third play written by English playwright Patrick Marber. The play was premiered at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in London in 1997, and made its North American debut at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway on 25 January 1999....
, and the 2004 film
Closer (film)
Closer is a 2004 romantic drama film written by Patrick Marber, based on his award-winning 1997 play of the same name. It was produced and directed by Mike Nichols and stars Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Clive Owen...
based on it. An important element of the plot revolves around a central character who fabricates her identity based on the description of Ayres on the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, with some of the film's key scenes shot around the memorial.
Work with the Chandler family
Alice Ayres was born into a large family in 1859, the seventh of ten children of a labourer, John Ayres. In December 1877, her sister Mary Ann (older than Alice by eleven years) married an oil and paint dealer, Henry Chandler. Chandler owned a shop at 194 Union Street in Southwark, about 400 yards (365.8 m) south of the present-day Tate ModernTate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
.
In 1881 Ayres worked as a household assistant
Domestic worker
A domestic worker is a man, woman or child who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to cleaning and household maintenance, known as housekeeping...
to Edward Woakes, a doctor specialising in ear and throat disorders. By 1885 she had become a household assistant and nursemaid
Nursemaid
A nursemaid or nursery maid, is mostly a historical term of employment for a female servant in an elite household. In the 21st century, the position is largely defunct, owing to the relatively small number of households who maintain large staffs with the traditional hierarchy.The nursery maid...
to the Chandlers, living with the family. After her death, Ayres was described by a local resident as "not one of your fast sort—gentle and quiet-spoke, and always busy about her work". Another neighbour told the press that "no merry making, no excursion, no family festivity could tempt her from her self-imposed duties. The children must be bathed and put to bed, the clothes must be mended, the rooms must be 'tidied up', the cloth must be laid, the supper carefully prepared, before Alice would dream of setting forth on her own pleasures".
Union Street fire
The Chandler's shop at Union Street, as depicted in a contemporary newspaper illustration, occupied the corner premises of a building of three storeys. The family lived above the shop, with Henry and Mary Ann Chandler sleeping in one bedroom with their six-year-old son Henry, and Ayres sharing a room on the second floor with her nieces, five-year-old Edith, four-year-old Ellen, and three-year-old Elizabeth. On the night of 1885, fire broke out in the oil and paint shop, trapping the family upstairs. Gunpowder and casks of oil were stored in the lower floors of the building, causing the flames to spread rapidly. Although the shop was near the headquarters of the London Fire BrigadeLondon Fire Brigade
The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London.Founded in 1865, it is the largest of the fire services in the United Kingdom and the fourth-largest in the world with nearly 7,000 staff, including 5,800 operational firefighters based in 112 fire...
and the emergency services were quickly on scene, by the time the fire engine arrived intense flames were coming from the lower windows, making it impossible for the fire brigade to position ladders. Meanwhile Ayres, wearing only a nightdress, had tried to reach her sister but was unable to get to her through the smoke. The crowd that had gathered outside the building were shouting to Ayres to jump. Instead she returned to the room she shared with the three young girls and threw a mattress out of the window, carefully dropping Edith onto it. Despite further calls from below to jump and save herself, she left the window and returned carrying Ellen. Ellen clung to Ayres and refused to be dropped, but Ayres threw her out of the building, and the child was caught by a member of the crowd. Ayres went back into the smoke a third time and returned carrying badly injured Elizabeth, whom she dropped safely onto the mattress.
After rescuing the three girls, Ayres tried to jump herself, but overcome by smoke inhalation, fell limply from the window, striking the projecting shop sign. She missed the mattress and the crowd below and fell onto the pavement, suffering spinal injuries. Ayres was rushed to nearby Guy's Hospital
Guy's Hospital
Guy's Hospital is a large NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in south east London, England. It is administratively a part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. It is a large teaching hospital and is home to the King's College London School of Medicine...
where, because of the public interest that her story excited, hourly bulletins were issued about her health and Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
sent a lady-in-waiting
Lady-in-waiting
A lady-in-waiting is a female personal assistant at a royal court, attending on a queen, a princess, or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman from a family highly thought of in good society, but was of lower rank than the woman on whom she...
to enquire after her condition.
The oil and paint stored in the shop caused the fire to burn out of control, and when the fire services were eventually able to enter the premises the rest of the family were found dead. The body of Henry Chandler was found on the staircase, still clutching a locked strongbox filled with the shop's takings, while the badly burnt remains of Mary Ann Chandler were found lying next to a first floor window, the body of six-year-old Henry by her side. Ayres's condition deteriorated and she died in Guy's Hospital on 1885. Her last words were reported as "I tried my best and could try no more". Elizabeth, the last of the children to be rescued, had suffered severe burns to her legs and died shortly after Ayres.
Funeral
Ayres's body was not taken to Guy's Hospital's mortuary, but was laid in a room set aside for her. The estimated value of the floral tributes came to over £1,000 (about £ as of ). Ayres was posthumously recognised by the Metropolitan Board of WorksMetropolitan Board of Works
The Metropolitan Board of Works was the principal instrument of London-wide government from 1855 until the establishment of the London County Council in 1889. Its principal responsibility was to provide infrastructure to cope with London's rapid growth, which it successfully accomplished. The MBW...
-controlled Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire
Society for the Protection of Life from Fire
The Society for the Protection of Life from Fire was the first non-privately-owned fire service in Britain. Establish in 1836 it has provided escape ladders, equipment such as ladders to assist in fighting fires. It gives out awards to the general public for notable acts of bravery or courage in...
(today the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire), who awarded her father John Ayres a sum of 10 guineas
Guinea (British coin)
The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...
(about £ as of ) in her honour. A memorial service for Ayres at St Saviour's Church
Southwark Cathedral
Southwark Cathedral or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge....
(now Southwark Cathedral) attracted such a large crowd that mourners were turned away due to lack of standing room, while a collection taken at the memorial service comprised 951 coins, totalling over £7. Ayres was given a large public funeral, attended by over 10,000 mourners. Her coffin was carried from her parents' house to her grave in Isleworth Cemetery
Isleworth Cemetery
Isleworth Cemetery is a cemetery in Isleworth, London Borough of Hounslow, in west London, England.-Notable burials:-External links:*...
by a team of 16 firemen, relieving each other in sets of four. The church service was attended by a group of 20 girls, dressed in white, from the village school that Ayres had attended. It had been planned that the girls should follow the coffin to the graveside and sing, but a severe hailstorm prevented this.
Henry and Mary Ann Chandler were buried in Lambeth Cemetery
Lambeth Cemetery
Lambeth Cemetery, Blackshaw Road, Tooting, London SW17 0BY is in Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is one of three cemeteries now owned by the London Borough of Lambeth .-History:Like Streatham, Lambeth Cemetery was developed...
along with the two children who had died in the fire. Edith and Ellen Chandler were accepted by the Orphan Working School in Kentish Town
Kentish Town
Kentish Town is an area of north west London, England in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The most widely accepted explanation of the name of Kentish Town is that it derived from 'Ken-ditch' meaning the 'bed of a waterway'...
and trained as domestic servants.
Memorial
Shortly after the fire it was decided to erect a monument to Ayres, to be funded by public subscription, and by August 1885 the fund had raised over £100 (about £ as of ). On 1885 work began on the memorial. The monument was erected above her grave in Isleworth Cemetery, and was of an Egyptian design inspired by Cleopatra's NeedleCleopatra's Needle
Cleopatra's Needle is the popular name for each of three Ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London, Paris, and New York City during the nineteenth century. The London and New York ones are a pair, while the Paris one comes from a different original site where its twin remains...
, which had been raised in central London in 1878. It took the form of a 14 feet (4.3 m) solid red granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...
, and is still today the tallest grave marker in the cemetery. On the front of the obelisk is inscribed The right hand side of the monument lists the ten members of the Alice Ayres Memorial Committee, chaired by Rev H. W. P. Richards. The Union Street fire and Ayres's rescue of the children caused great public interest from the outset, and the fire, Ayres's death and funeral, and the fundraising for and erection of the memorial were all reported in detail in the local and national press and throughout the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
.
"A secular canonisation"
The British government had traditionally paid little attention to the poor, but in the wake of the Industrial RevolutionIndustrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
attitudes towards the accomplishments of the lower classes were changing. The growth of the railways, the mechanisation of agriculture and the need for labour in the new inner-city factories had broken the traditional feudal economy and caused the rapid growth of cities, while increasing literacy rates led to a greater interest in the media and current affairs among ordinary workers. In 1856 the first military honour for bravery open to all ranks, the Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
, had been instituted, while in 1866 the Albert Medal
Albert Medal (lifesaving)
The Albert Medal for Lifesaving was a British medal awarded to recognise the saving of life. It has since been replaced by the George Cross.The Albert Medal was first instituted by a Royal Warrant on 7 March 1866 and discontinued in 1971 with the last two awards promulgated in the London Gazette of...
, the first official honour open to civilians of all classes, was introduced. Additionally, a number of private and charitable organisations dedicated to lifesaving, most prominently the Royal Humane Society
Royal Humane Society
The Royal Humane Society is a British charity which promotes lifesaving intervention. It was founded in England in 1774 as the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned, for the purpose of rendering first aid in cases of near drowning....
(1776) and Royal National Lifeboat Institution
Royal National Lifeboat Institution
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as well as on selected inland waterways....
(1824), were increasing in activity and prominence, and gave awards and medals as a means of publicising their activities and lifesaving advice.
Painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts
George Frederic Watts
George Frederic Watts, OM was a popular English Victorian painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as Hope and Love and Life...
and his second wife, designer and artist Mary Fraser Tytler
Mary Fraser Tytler
Mary Seton Fraser Tytler was a symbolist craftswoman, designer and social reformer.-Biography:...
, had long been advocates of the idea of art as a force for social change, and of the principle that narratives of great deeds would provide guidance to address the serious social problems of British cities. Watts had recently painted a series of portraits of leading figures he considered to be a positive social influence, the "Hall of Fame", which was donated to the National Portrait Gallery; since at least 1866 he had proposed as a companion piece a monument to "unknown worth", celebrating the bravery of ordinary people.
On 5 September 1887, a letter was published in The Times from Watts, proposing a scheme to commemorate the Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee
A Golden Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 50th anniversary.- In Thailand :King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch, celebrated his Golden Jubilee on 9 June 1996.- In the Commonwealth Realms :...
of Queen Victoria by means of collecting and commemorating "a complete record of the stories of heroism in every-day life". He cited the death of Alice Ayres as an example of the type of event he proposed to commemorate, and included in his letter a distorted account of Ayres's actions during the Union Street fire.
Watts had originally proposed that the monument take the form of a colossal bronze figure, but by 1887 was proposing that the memorial take the form of "a kind of Campo Santo
Camposanto Monumentale
The Campo Santo, also known as Camposanto Monumentale or Camposanto Vecchio , is a historical edifice at the northern edge of the Cathedral Square in Pisa, Italy....
", consisting of a covered way and marble wall inscribed with the names of everyday heroes, to be built in Hyde Park
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
. Watts's suggestion was not taken up, leading Watts to comment that "if I had proposed a race course round Hyde Park, there would have been plenty of sympathisers". However, his high profile lobbying further raised the already high public awareness of the death of Alice Ayres.
Depiction in literature and art
Emilia Aylmer BlakeEmilia Aylmer Blake
Emilia Aylmer Blake, also known as Emilia Aylmer Gowing, was a British dramatist, novelist and poet.Blake was born Bath, England, the daughter of a Dublin lawyer. She was educated in England and France. She became known for her recitations and her poetry written for recitation, which includes her...
wrote perhaps the first poem about Ayres, titled Alice Ayres, which she recited at a social gathering in June 1885. Sir Francis Hastings Doyle
Francis Hastings Doyle
Sir Francis Hastings Charles Doyle, 2nd Baronet was a British poet.-Biography:Doyle was born near Tadcaster, Yorkshire, to a military family which produced several distinguished officers, including his father, Major-General Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, 1st Baronet, who was created a baronet in 1828...
also wrote a well-received poem in honour of Ayres, as did leading social reformer and women's rights campaigner Laura Ormiston Chant
Laura Ormiston Chant
Laura Ormiston Dibbin Chant was an English social reformer and writer.Chant was born on 9 October 1848, in Woollaston, Gloucestershire, the daughter of Francis William Dibbin , a civil engineer and Sophia Ormiston , who managed a girls institution. Her parents were highly disciplinary and she...
. By the late 1880s Ayres was coming to be seen as a model of British devotion to duty, and her story was told in collections of heroic and inspirational stories for children, including as the first story in F. J. Cross's influential Beneath the Banner, in which Cross remarked that: "She had tried to do her best always. Her loving tenderness to the children committed to her care and her pure gentle life were remarked by those around her before there was any thought of her dying a heroic death. So, when the great trial came, she was prepared; and what seems to us Divine unselfishness appeared to her but simple duty."
In 1890 a series of painted panels by Walter Crane
Walter Crane
Walter Crane was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most prolific and influential children’s book creator of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of...
were unveiled in Octavia Hill
Octavia Hill
Octavia Hill was an English social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a family with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing...
's Red Cross Hall, 550 yards (502.9 m) from the site of the Union Street fire. Inspired by George Frederic Watts's proposals, the panels depicted instances of heroism in everyday life; Watts himself refused to become involved in the project, as his proposed monument was intended to be a source of inspiration and contemplation as opposed to simply commemoration, and he felt that an artistic work would potentially distract viewers from the most important element of the cases, the heroic sacrifices of the individuals involved.
The first of Price's panels depicted the Union Street fire. It is an idealised image depicting Ayres as the rescued rather than the rescuer, blending religious imagery with traditional 19th-century symbols of British heroism, and bears no relationship to actual events. Ayres, in a long and flowing pure white gown, stands at a first floor window, surrounded in flames and holding a small child. A fireman stands on a ladder and reaches out to Ayres and the child; meanwhile, a sailor in full Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
uniform holds a second child. Although in reality Ayres had been at a much higher level of the building and the heat of the burning oil and gunpowder had made it impossible for the fire brigade to approach the building, by depicting Ayres with the fireman and sailor, widely seen as symbols of British heroism and British strength, Price's picture further enhanced her growing reputation as a heroic figure. Price's picture in the Red Cross Hall was itself mentioned in Alice Ayres, a border ballad
Border ballad
The English/Scottish border has a long and bloody history of conquest and reconquest, raid and counter-raid . It also has a stellar tradition of balladry, such that a whole group of songs exists that are often called "border ballads", because they were collected in that region.Border ballads, like...
by National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
founder Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley
Hardwicke Rawnsley
Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley , was an English clergyman, poet, writer of hymns and conservationist, known as one of the co-founders of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty...
published in his 1896 Ballads of Brave Deeds, for which George Frederic Watts wrote the preface.
Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice
In 1898 George Frederic Watts was approached by Henry Gamble, vicar of St Botolph's Aldersgate church in the City of LondonCity of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
. St Botolph's former churchyard
Churchyard
A churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language or Northern English language this can also be known as a kirkyard or kirkyaird....
had recently been converted, along with two smaller adjoining burial grounds, into Postman's Park
Postman's Park
Postman's Park is a park in central 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 largest parks in the City of London, the walled city...
, one of the largest public parks in the City of London, and the church was engaged in a protracted financial and legal dispute over ownership of part of the park. To provide a public justification for keeping the disputed land as part of the park, and to raise the park's profile and assist in fundraising, the church offered part of the park as a site for his proposed memorial. Watts agreed, and in 1900 the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice was unveiled by Alfred Newton, Lord Mayor of London, and Mandell Creighton
Mandell Creighton
Mandell Creighton , was a British historian and a bishop of the Church of England. A scholar of the Renaissance papacy, Creighton was the first occupant of the Dixie Chair of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge, a professorship that was established around the time that the study...
, Bishop of London
Bishop of London
The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...
. The Memorial consisted of a 50 feet (15.2 m) long and 9 feet (2.7 m) tall wooden loggia
Loggia
Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
with a tiled roof, designed by Ernest George
Ernest George
Sir Ernest George RA was an English architect, landscape and architectural watercolour painter, and etcher.-Life and work:...
, sheltering a wall with space for 120 ceramic memorial tablets.
The memorial tablets were hand made and expensive to produce, and at the time of the Memorial's unveiling only four were in place. In 1902 a further nine tablets were unveiled, including the memorial to Alice Ayres for which Watts had long lobbied. Made by William De Morgan
William De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan was an English potter and tile designer. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles are often based on medieval designs or Persian patterns, and he experimented with innovative glazes and...
in the Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
style, the green-and-white tablet reads "Alice Ayres, daughter of a bricklayer's labourer who by intrepid conduct saved 3 children from a burning house in Union Street, Borough, at the cost of her own young life April 24, 1885".
Changing attitudes and differing perceptions
Although the public would have been familiar with the concept of a female national heroic figure following the widespread coverage and public admiration of Harriet NewellHarriet Newell
Harriet Newell was born Harriet Atwood at Haverhill, Massachusetts in Oct 1793. She was part of the first wave of Christian missionaries to go overseas from the United States. She died less than a year into her journey and became a hero and role model for Christians during the Nineteenth Century...
, Grace Darling
Grace Darling
Grace Horsley Darling was an English Victorian heroine who in 1838, along with her father, saved 13 people from the wreck of the SS Forfarshire.-Biography:...
, and Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
, the ongoing coverage of Ayres and her elevation as a national hero was unusual for the period. Ayres was an uneducated working class woman, who after her death underwent what has been described as "a secular canonisation", at a time when, despite the gradual formal recognition of the contributions of the lower classes, national heroes were generally male and engaged in exploration, the military, religion or science and engineering.
This was a period in which political pressures for social reform were growing. The version of Ayres presented to the public as a woman devoted entirely to duty embodied the idealised British character at the time, while the image of a hard working but uncomplaining woman who set the welfare of others above her own embodied the idealised vision of the working class presented by social reformers, and the ideal selfless and dedicated woman presented by campaigners for women's rights. At the unveiling of the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice the Lord Mayor, Alfred Newton, had remarked that it was "intended to perpetuate the acts of heroism which belonged to the working classes", while George Frederic Watts, although he was opposed in principle to discrimination based on class and saw the Memorial as being theoretically open to all classes, had remarked that "the higher classes do not or ought not to require reminders or inducements". Watts saw the purpose of his Memorial not as a commemoration of deeds, but as a tool for the education of the lower classes.
Watts's view was shared by others who sought to provide inspirational material on British heroes, and authors writing about Ayres systematically altered the fact that the children rescued were members of her family, instead describing them as the children of her employer. Press reports at the time of the fire described Ayres variously as a "little nursemaid", "a willing, honest, hard-working servant", and a "poor little domestic". As well as Watts's 1887 description of Ayres as "the maid of all work at an oilmonger's", Cross's chapter on Ayres in Beneath the Banner is titled "Only a Nurse Girl!", while Rawnsley called her "the nursemaid in the household". Barrington, writing five years after the fire at the unveiling of Price's panel, acknowledges in a footnote that Ayres was related to the Chandlers, but nonetheless describes her as displaying the "typical English virtues—courage, fortitude, and an unquestioning sense of duty".
While George and Mary Watts and their fellow paternalist
Paternalism
Paternalism refers to attitudes or states of affairs that exemplify a traditional relationship between father and child. Two conditions of paternalism are usually identified: interference with liberty and a beneficent intention towards those whose liberty is interfered with...
social reformers, along with the broadly sympathetic mainstream British press, portrayed Ayres as an inspirational selfless servant to her employer, others had a different view. The left-wing Reynolds Weekly Newspaper
Reynold's News
Reynold's News was a Sunday newspaper in the United Kingdom.The paper was founded as Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper by George W. M. Reynolds in 1850, who became its first editor. By 1870, the paper was selling more than 350,000 copies per week...
complained that the lack of support for Ayres's family from the state was symbolic of poor treatment of workers as a whole. The pioneering feminist periodical The Englishwoman's Review
Englishwoman's Review
The Englishwoman's Review was a feminist periodical published in the United Kingdom between 1866 and 1910.Until 1869 called in full The Englishwoman's Review: a journal of woman's work, in 1870 it was renamed The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions.One of the first feminist...
described their "righteous pride" at Ayres's "instinctive motherhood"; on the other hand Young England
Young England magazine
Young England: A Illustrated Magazine for Boys Throughout the English-Speaking World was a British story paper aimed at a similar audience to the Boy's Own Paper, It was published from 1880 until 1937.- Publishing history :...
, an imperialist children's story paper
Story paper
*This article is about British Story papers. For the U.S. version, see Dime novel.A story paper is a periodical publication similar to a literary magazine, but featuring illustrations and text stories, and aimed towards children and teenagers...
, said that "there is no sex in self-sacrifice", lauding Ayres as a model of devotion to duty.
Later years
In 1936 the new LabourLabour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
administration of the London County Council
London County Council
London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...
renamed White Cross Street, near the site of the Red Cross Hall and the scene of the Union Street fire, to Ayres Street in tribute to Alice Ayres, a name it retains today. The Chandlers' house at 194 Union Street no longer stands, and the site is occupied by part of the Union House office complex; immediately opposite the site of the fire is the present-day headquarters of the London Fire Brigade
London Fire Brigade
The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London.Founded in 1865, it is the largest of the fire services in the United Kingdom and the fourth-largest in the world with nearly 7,000 staff, including 5,800 operational firefighters based in 112 fire...
.
Alice Ayres came to renewed public notice with the release of the 1997 play Closer
Closer (play)
Closer is the third play written by English playwright Patrick Marber. The play was premiered at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in London in 1997, and made its North American debut at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway on 25 January 1999....
by Patrick Marber
Patrick Marber
Patrick Albert Crispin Marber is an English comedian, playwright, director, puppeteer, actor and screenwriter.-Early life and education:...
and the 2004 BAFTA Award
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square...
- and Golden Globe
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
-winning film Closer
Closer (film)
Closer is a 2004 romantic drama film written by Patrick Marber, based on his award-winning 1997 play of the same name. It was produced and directed by Mike Nichols and stars Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Clive Owen...
based on it starring Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
, Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
, Jude Law
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
and Clive Owen
Clive Owen
Clive Owen is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991...
. A key plot element revolves around the memorial tablet to Ayres in Postman's Park, in which it is revealed that the character Jane Jones (played by Portman in the film), who calls herself Alice Ayres for most of the story, has in fact fabricated her identity based on the tablet on the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, which she reads at the time of her first meeting with Dan Woolf (played by Jude Law in the film) at the beginning of the action. The park, and the memorial to Ayres, feature prominently in the opening and closing scenes of the film.