AN IDEAL MEMORIAL FOR KING EDWARD.
WE desire to enlist all the sympathy and support we can for the King Edward Memorial scheme recently ad- vocated by the Bishop of Stepney. The scheme proposes to utilize the derelict Shadwell Fish Market for making a park on the bank of the Thames in a part of London where a park is peculiarly needed. We do not, however, recommend the plan merely because it fits in conveniently with a "felt want." We believe that a park overlooking the busy part of the Thames, in full view of ships going to and coming from all parts of the world, and reminding people that the source of all the power and prosperity of Great Britain is the sea, would have a value and charm unique among the parks of London. The proposal is not only defensible but in every way admirable, and, in our judgment, it ought to triumph on its merits. It has been said that Shadwell is too poor a part of London for so important a memorial. That is an objection which would have been hotly repudiated by King Edward himself; we cannot imagine a more mean and odious argument than that the memorial of a king who was truly a king of his people should necessarily be placed in a rich dis- trict. It may be said that the objection is not to the poverty of Shadwell but to its remoteness. That argument is, to our mind, equally mistaken. The Thames below bridges is one of the most interesting parts of London; if it is rather hidden away from our modern life it is because London has so far forgotten that it is the greatest port in the world that it has almost forgotten that it is a port at all. In other ports the sea-going life flavours the whole scene, but in Lon- don the sailor is swallowed up in the multifarious busy-ness. It is astonishing how few are the people who, living west of the City, ever go east of Tower Bridge. As for the docks themselves they are generally written off in the mind of well-to-do Londoners as an inaccessible region— which is partly true—and Switzerland and the Italian lakes are by comparison very familiar spots. One of the chief virtues of placing the King Edward Memorial at Shadwell would be that it would recall attention to those reaches of the river, alike noble and important, below bridges which Taine held to be the only proper approach to London. Through this amazing avenue of wharves, docks, and warehouses, supplied by and supplying the world, every visitor to London, he thought, ought to pass. We believe it is a fact that along the whole reach on which Shadwell Fish Market lies there is no direct approach to the river from the streets. This fasci- nating part of the river is utterly shut off from view.
Shadwell Fish Market was established in 1885, and it was thought that there was plenty of room for a successful rival to Billingsgate. The new market, however, languished and failed. The site, which covers over four acres, is now the property of the City Corporation. There is some land next to it which belongs to the London County Council, and alto- gether we understand that about eight acres could probably be acquired for a park. The park would elope down to the edge of the water, and we suggest that here—with the London Docks to the west, the West India Docks to the east, and the wilderness of masts and rigging in the wonderful Com- mercial Docks immediately opposite across the river—a great, even a colossa], statue of King Edward should be placed. It should be plainly visible to every ship which comes up to the Pool of London. The few green acres on the shore would be a thing of beauty and solace among the buildings. We cannot imagine a statue which would have a more distin- guished or a more significant position.
The park itself should be a garden-park, with the touch of informality which endears St. James's Park to all Londoners, and which they would almost rise in riot to defend. A great park like Hyde Park must necessarily be of a different character, but for small parks there is, besides St. James's Park, an excellent model in Brockwell Park, in which the old walled garden has been retained. Fruit still grows on
the walls, and it is never touched by thieving bands because it is known that it goes to the hospitals. We do not expect plums to ripen in Shadwell, but there are many simple and hardy flowers and vegetables which lend themselves to informality. Above all is informality attained by the nature of the walks, which must not be too broad or too straight. Arguing from the example of Brockwell Park, we think that every new London park should contain an open-air swimming bath. Ornamental water would be unnecessary for any other purpose at Shadwell, for the river would be the great ornamental water of the park. The Bishop of Stepney, we understand, would be content with the park as such as a memorial to King Edward. Victoria Park is two miles away and Hackney Marshes farther still ; Shadwell therefore deserves an open space. But we would insist that the Shadwell park should be made the site of a statue of the King. On the most commanding position on a terrace it should stand, and we suggest that the outworks of the monument should be symbolical of the maritime life of Britain and useful in under- standing it. The Port of London Authority is gradually reducing to order the hugger-mugger arrangements of the great docks which, however impressive they have always been, did not and could not work together for the development of the great river which is the mother of them all. A King Edward statue at Shadwell would mark the beginning of the new era in the life of the port.
We do not forget the right of Greenwich to be considered the first of naval museums, and there is no thought of the memorial at Shadwell competing with that in any sense. Let us picture the kind of monument we have in mind. The figure of the King, as we said, would be on the heroic scale, an unmistakable landmark. After the French wars Flaxman proposed to set up a figure of Britannia, two hundred feet high, on the hill above Greenwich Hospital. We often regret that he did not do so ; even though his heroic work was not comparable with his small figures the statue would have had the Greek grace of form and pose of which he had the secret more than any of our sculptors. The statue of King Edward which we are imagining would not be of that size, but . it would be very bold and imposing. Hound the statue would run a rectangular cloister, and at each corner there would be a representation of something associated with mari- time or meteorological science—say a terrestrial globe at one corner, an astral globe at another, a Dutch sun-dial or a sextant at another. Those who have seen the globe carved out of the rock at Swanage, or the great mathematical instru- ments fashioned for the Emperor of China by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, and now, unless we are mistaken, German "loot," will not, need to be told how impressive such things may be. At the fourth corner why should there not be a gun fired by the sun at noon What a source of entertainment and speculation that salute would be! Will the sun do his duty ? We can imagine the cheers when the gun went off on a doubtful day. Within the cloister there would be charts and maps of the world graven in relief iu marble on the walls. We cannot think of a better illustration of what we mean than the excellent effect of the giant maps on the wall of the great hall in the railway station at Milan, Sailors would show their sweethearts and friends what .F...rts of the world they had visited, and in the cloister, tee, there would be designs of rigs and the flags of nations by which the onlooker could understand the life of the river passing before his eyes. Combined with the monument there might be a " look-out " from which one could watch ships approaching from the Pool in one direction or coming round the bend from Limehonse Reach in the other. In summer the music of the band on the terrace would carry over the water and mingle with the distant clank of derricks and the hammering of the riveters. If this would not be an appropriate plan for the memorial of an English king we must be wrong in supposing that Englishmen are proud of their maritime supremacy and of the mighty river which makes the east and west of London one.
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