Victoria Park

Sir James Pennethorne

1850

Tower Hamlets, East London

[See commentary below]

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Burdett-Coutts Memorial Drinking-Fountain

Stonework with inscription (detail)

Photograph, caption, and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee 2007.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL.]

The idea of having a big public park in the East End was first proposed by the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the 1839 Annual Report. He believed it would relieve overcrowding and pollution, improve health, and bring down the alarmingly high death rate in this poor part of London. A petition for such a park, signed by 30,000 residents, was presented to the Queen in the following year, and the project was approved and passed to James Pennethorne, then the Architect to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. 290 acres were acquired for the park, which was opened in 1845 and continued to be laid out until 1850. The Queen finally came to visit it in 1873.

Victoria Park proved to be an ideal place for East Enders to gather, whether to bathe in the bathing pool or to listen to public speaking, with people like William Morris and Annie Besant holding forth to the London poor there; ironically, it was the site of Chartist demonstrations in 1848.

Sources

"History of Victoria Park." www.remarkableproductions.org. Viewed November 2007.

"Victoria Park.". www.pats-towerhamlets.ch. Viewed November 2007.

Weinreb, Ben and Christopher Hibbert, eds. The London Encyclopaedia. London: Macmillan, rev. ed. 1992.

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Last modified 6 December 2007