THE PEOPLE’S PARK
The London Parks strike different people in different ways, and
certainly a bailiff of the late well-known Yorkshire squire, Sir Tatton
Sykes, looked upon them with different eyes from the ordinary mortal.
Sir Tatton sent him to London to see the sights, and on his return
asked him what he thought of London.
“Lots o’ houses,” he said, “and I found some pretty good pasture, only
it was a bit scattered.”
This was the way he summed up the beautiful squares and parks of London.
It is extraordinary how this class of people look upon things
generally. I well remember an old gardener of my grandfather’s who,
after fifty years’ service in the family, was given a treat to London.
When he got back to Lancashire he also was asked what he thought of
London.
“I was just in a haze,” he said, “and they took me to bed in a
hoist,”—this being his description of going up to bed in a lift at the
London hotel.
Like every other big town, London has its areas strictly mapped out,
only in this great community the lines of cleavage are more marked than
in others. Live but a few streets too far citywards, and you lose the
privilege of belonging to the West End, and are merged in the great
middle class.
The middle class, too, has its line of divergence, to travel beyond
which is to lose middle-class status, and sink into the maelstrom of
the East End. All this, no doubt, is snobbish; but then every class has
its snobs just as it has its bores, no matter into which particular
class one may be born, or risen, or descended.
Hyde Park, however, is the common heritage of all, the meeting-ground
of King and coster. It is the most truly democratic spot in all London.
It is surprising what tolerance there is, what good feeling pervades
the throng made up of such extraordinary mixtures and contradictions.
A well-dressed woman, who goes into a mean street of slum-land, is
made the subject of audible remarks, mostly ribald, too often coarse.
Her fashionable costume seems to excite hatred. The would-be finery
of the Park no doubt envies the real finery. The workman in his heart
is contemptuous of the frock-coated “swell,” but they meet there on a
quiet and friendly footing. Passions of class distinction are subdued
within the fairy ring of Hyde Park. A lady walking or driving in its
precincts need never fear being assailed by anything likely to offend
her ear.
Manners, too, have changed. My father would have thought it an awful
thing to have smoked in the Row. Nobody would have dreamt of doing
such a thing in the sixties or seventies, or even eighties. Nowadays
cigars and cigarettes are quite common, while a pipe is sometimes to be
seen in the morning or evening, between the lips of some business or
professional man going or coming from his office or chambers.
Of the Park habitués, Royalty must necessarily come first. Between nine
and ten o’clock almost any morning of the week, when he is in town, the
Prince of Wales, faultlessly mounted, and generally attended by Sir
Arthur Bigge, may be seen entering the Park at Hyde Park Corner. To the
most of the world he goes unnoticed. He rides as quietly as any other
gentleman in the Row, and so as not to disturb his pleasure no one bows
unless personally acquainted with his Royal Highness. Like his father,
he has a happy knack of seeing people and beckoning to them, or, if
necessary, sending Sir Arthur Bigge, or the groom who follows, to say
he wishes to speak to them. The Prince is noted for his chaffing, merry
way.
The Duke of Connaught, not even attended by a gentleman-in-waiting, the
Duke of Fife, the Duke of Teck, and Prince Francis of Teck, and a host
of others, ride at the same hour, and often join forces with the future
King of England.
One of the best-known figures in the Row, and yet at the same time not
a rider, is Lord Alverstone, the Lord Chief Justice, who walks through
the Park on his way to the Law Courts. It is quite extraordinary
the number of well-known people who may be seen riding every day.
One may frequently espy the clear-cut face of Mr. Justice Grantham,
sometimes chatting with his fellow-judge, Sir Charles Darling, who
seems to have found the secret of perpetual youth; and also Mr. Justice
Lawrence. In his time the late Lord Brampton, whose title of nobility
can never obscure the sarcasm of Mr. Justice Hawkins, took his daily
constitutional under the trees.
Among Members of both Houses of Parliament, riding or walking, are
the Marquis of Lansdowne, beautifully mounted, Mr. Winston Churchill
talking to himself, and Sir John Dickson-Poynder.
Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, the Arctic explorer, and till lately Norwegian
Minister in London, often rode in the Park; and also Count Paul
Wolff-Metternich. Count Albert Mensdorf, Herr Pouilly-Dietrichstein,
the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, walk, and so do the Earl of Rosebery
and Mr. Leopold de Rothschild. The Duke and Duchess of Somerset, the
Duchess of Sutherland, the Countess of Warwick, Muriel Viscountess
Helmsley, Mary Lady Inverclyde, Sir Alfred Turner, and hosts of others
familiar in London society, ride among the throng, in which are
frequently to be seen West End doctors—Sir Felix Semon, Mr. Butlin, Mr.
Clinton Dent, Dr. Dakin, Dr. Cautly, Mr. Arbuthnot Lane, Dr. Kingston
Fowler, Mr. Collins; and artists—Mr. Solomon J. Solomon, R.A., Mr.
Shannon, A.R.A., and Mr. Linley Sambourne of _Punch_.
Actors are there too. Mr. Cyril Maud, Mr. George Alexander, Mr. Allan
Ainsworth, Mr. Beerbohm Tree, Mr. Boucicault; to say nothing of Gibson
girls, those mysterious folk who only earn a pound a week, and yet ride
thoroughbreds and drive motor cars.
The only people who have the right to drive in a carriage down Rotten
Row are His Majesty King Edward, who, unlike his mother, has never
exercised that privilege, and the Duke of St. Albans, as Hereditary
Grand Falconer.
An enormously wealthy and well-known financier used to ride every day
in Hyde Park. He was never much of a horseman, and as he grew older
the little nerve he had possessed gradually went. Nevertheless, he
was determined not to give up the habit of years, and if, after all,
his ride did not give him much pleasure, it employed a vast number of
people, and so lessened the ranks of the unemployed. First of all, a
groom had to exercise his horse for a couple of hours, that is to say,
take all the pluck out of it, so that a handsome but jaded steed was
left for a little gentle exercise.
Before, and beside him, two other grooms were in attendance, the idea
being that while one was at his service, the other had a second horse
in case he required it. More than that, an empty carriage, with a pair
of horses and a couple of men-servants, wandered round the Park as long
as he was riding, and as close within earshot as possible. They were
to take the good gentleman home if he was tired. One would imagine
that this was sufficient for one solitary man’s ride for an hour, but
not at all. Two or three men in plain clothes, really grooms from this
gentleman’s stables, were stationed at intervals down the Row, so that
if anything went wrong they might rush to his service at once. I have
often wondered if that good man’s morning ride did not cost him more
pain than pleasure.
Beside the riders who are there for amusement, mounted police are
the only people who gallop up and down Rotten Row, but there was an
exception to this rule a few years back.
In 1890, a year memorable for the number of processions to the Park,
and demonstrations held therein, discontent was aroused in the minds of
some of the younger policemen at the extra work entailed. These Sunday
processions became a weekly occurrence, and of course extra police were
required to look after them. Naturally, when this went on for some time
the men in blue felt aggrieved. They wanted their Sundays like everyone
else. The “agitators,” not being particularly anxious to have their
services, at once suggested that they should go out on strike.
One hot July day these members of the force struck or committed some
such acts of insubordination, and confusion reigned at Bow Street.
The unswerving loyalty of the main body of the Metropolitan Police,
however, saved the situation, but for a couple of days troopers from
Knightsbridge barracks were to be seen patrolling Rotten Row, in place
of our usual dignified guardians of the peace.
One of the uses of the Park—too often a misuse—is that of a meeting
ground for all kinds of demonstrations. When any body of people—men or
women—wish to attract, they call out the crowd to “demonstrate,” and
march to Hyde Park. The place is big enough to contain them without
much disturbance to the other habitués, and as a “safety valve” it is
safer than Trafalgar Square, with so many shop-windows within reach.
Nothing about these demonstrations is more wonderful than the way they
are handled by the police. As soon as one is planned, information has
to be forwarded to Scotland Yard by the promoters, and arrangements
are immediately made. The processions often start from many different
quarters, but wherever they come, or wherever they go, they are
shepherded the whole time by the “bobbies” in blue, or in mufti.
In 1886 a detachment of one of these demonstrations got out of hand
and struck terror to the West End, where they wrecked a number of
shops in Piccadilly and Audley Street,—named by some wit “Disorderly
Street,”—and Oxford Street. This caused a scare, and as broken windows
and broken heads are not things to be encouraged, preparations have
been more carefully made ever since, though most wisely concealed.
Rumour has it that, by telephone with Scotland Yard, a thousand extra
men can be brought into Hyde Park at a few moments’ notice, and that a
number are kept very much nearer the scene of action during the whole
time of a demonstration in case of need. There are police barracks near
the Royal Humane Society’s station, where a large force could be kept
ready. Nowhere in the world is such a well-organised and well-worked
system to be found. London is the model on which all the police
regulations of other capitals are formed.
The Metropolitan Police have seven hundred square miles under their
jurisdiction. They are some twenty thousand strong, and whether we
see a single mounted policeman clearing the way for the Queen to pass
up the Lady’s Mile in Hyde Park, or hundreds of them manipulating a
demonstration of fifty thousand people in Hyde Park, we look on and
marvel.
About £8000 a year is spent on police work for this park alone. It
seems a large sum, but is nothing compared with the amount of useful
work they do. Only a century or so back the park was not safe at night;
but now, although still badly lighted, thanks to the police force, any
one who passes through may feel secure.
Of the many demonstrations that have taken place of recent years, the
most epoch-making was probably the march of the suffragettes in 1907.
While ladies had actually been elected, and seven of them were calmly
taking their seats in the Parliament of Finland—the most advanced
corner of the world as regards women’s rights—our English sisters were
marching to Hyde Park. They had tried quiet means and loud; addressed
meetings, waved flags, and shouted from behind the grill in the House
of Commons, had fought policemen in open combat in the streets; and
then they bethought themselves of a gigantic open-air muster.
Smart ladies in thousand-guinea motors, costers who were forced to
leave their carts outside, factory women with babies in their arms,
titled dames and girls from the slums, all marched or rode or drove
in that great procession. The suffragettes behaved most moderately in
Hyde Park. The noisy scenes were all reserved for Westminster, where a
Member of Parliament laughingly remarked to me:
“I love women, but I don’t like them when they are carried away by
their feelings, and then by the policeman.”
After a suffragist riot outside the House of Commons, a constable was
asked by a Member if they had had many people in the row.
“Never saw such a sight here in my life, sir.”
“Really?—Were they very unruly?”
“Awful, just kicking and scratching, and going on anyhow.”
“And you didn’t get hurt?”
“No, thank you, sir. You see, I am a married man, so I know how to
handle women.”
For forty years women worked quietly for their rights and got nothing,
and so they are determined to proclaim their wrongs from the housetops
until they are heard.
In the centre of the Park, one Sunday on the grass, stood a red
flag on a waggonette, from which the horse has been unhitched. In
the vehicle sat four women; a large crowd surrounded them. It was a
suffragette meeting. An elderly woman was speaking, her audience was
mainly composed of men of every class and grade,—from the Society
man in immaculate silk hat and frock-coat to the tramp with his
grubby bundle under his arm. Here and there a woman’s dress relieved
the sombre-looking crowd with a bit of colour, and nurses wheeling
perambulators, occupied by aristocratic babies, formed a fringed border
to the gathering. Shouts of laughter rose every few seconds; even the
burly policemen, scattered here and there through the crowd, joined in
the merriment with more than a good-humoured chuckle. The old lady was
bringing her speech to a close.
“And what have you men done with the world, the lot of ye?” she asked.
“And what are ye afraid we women shall do with the world when we’ve our
vote?
“Afraid! that’s what ye are!”
Each remark produced a roar of laughter, which rose higher and higher
each time.
“You don’t want churches,” she continued. “Ruskin said you don’t want
churches——”
“Who did?” asked one of the crowd.
“Why, Ruskin,” she replied. “I read it not long ago.... We don’t want
churches either.”
“What _do you_ want, then,—public-houses?” asked a facetious
interrupter.
“No,” was the quick reply; “we are going to put down public-houses and
build nice _homes_.”
After some more remarks of a like kind the old lady sat down, and one
of the suffragettes, who had lately taken a change and rest at the
expense of the Government, rose and edified the company by a series
of remarks, which she apparently thought smart and clever, but which
were only calculated to do harm to her cause. Promiscuous men and women
speakers in the Park are generally cranks, who do no good to the cause
they advocate. The women, however, who organised that gigantic meeting
in 1907 marked an epoch not only in the position of the women of Great
Britain, but of the whole world.
A great demonstration, with its twenty or fifty thousand people,
is an occasional event. When agitators are busy there may be two or
three such in a year. But never a week passes without the free air of
Hyde Park being disturbed by the strident cries of somebody or other,
airing the grievances of himself or his class, while there is a set of
publicists—well-known figures—to whom the opportunities to hear their
own voices, afforded by the Park, seem to be their meat and drink and
vegetables. Assuredly they would die in oblivion were the gates closed
against them.
You will find them at the same spots year in year out, proclaiming
theology or agnosticism, socialism, and a dozen other “isms,” beating
the air with their fists, exhausting their physical powers by
gesticulating, and not infrequently shouting repartees at one another.
They are loud but unobtrusive, and in these broad acres really disturb
nobody.
I recall a recent Sunday, just an ordinary day, no special gatherings
of any kind, and a chill, grey afternoon towards the end of September,
the leaves fluttering down from the trees, and the few people who had
donned summer garments looking cold and blue, while occasionally a
drizzling rain fell. At the Marble Arch end of Hyde Park groups of
people had gathered at the railings of the semicircular gravel sweep.
The first group encircled a short, stout old man, who was holding
forth, Bible in hand. One of his hearers interrupted, and interrupted
again. I could hear neither preacher nor questioner, but as I
approached, the old man broke off his discourse:
“Shut up! I say, shut up!” he shouted in a tone of command.
The disturbing one in the audience persisted.
“Shut up! again I say shut up! or I’ll silence you, as I did those men
on the other side just now.”
Then he continued his address in a wailing tone, while his troublesome
listener still had his say.
The next group were clustered round a little man in a somewhat clerical
dress, holding up a written paper, perhaps eight inches square, with
the word “£2000” in large figures at the top, and smaller writing
underneath; but he was quite inaudible.
Then came a typical specimen of the tub-thumper, hat on head. Had he
been having a course of Sandow, I wondered, so fast did he move his
arms and hands. In the space of a few minutes the groups had swelled so
much that the outer circle of one touched that of the next. Unitarians,
Catholic Defence League, Christian Evidence Society, an Evangelist,
Wesleyans (who had erected a kind of pulpit, with harvest decorations),
and Mr. Carlile’s much respected and ever-practical Church Army, all
found room and listeners in that corner of the Park. Besides these
there were two or three other speakers who were holding forth, and who
had no banners, but from a word or two that reached me I gathered that
each was evidently representing some special sect.
Apart from these I saw a unique case of unrequited perseverance under
difficulties. A workman who had evidently tidied up his working clothes
for Sunday, and highly waxed his dark moustache, was standing alone,
speaking rapidly, and apparently with earnest purpose. But alas! his
audience consisted of a very old woman, a toddling little boy, a baby
in a perambulator, and a small girl who had to reach up to push it
along. But still he talked, looking straight in front of him, his hands
at his sides; and half an hour later when I passed the spot again he
was in the same position, still talking with the same energy, still
looking straight before him, but this time there was no audience at
all. I was not able to distinguish the words, and so remain ignorant of
the theme of so much eloquence.
A lady sang a solo in the Wesleyan group, from a rival gathering rose
the strain of the “Old Hundredth,” and close at hand voices were raised
to a third tune; but everybody seemed to like the musical combination.
There was yet another group about a hundred yards farther on. A long
sort of cart, with its horse taken out, formed a platform for five men.
Four sat behind the speaker, looking grave as the proverbial judge,
while a lively promoter of the meeting hammered the atmosphere, and
poured forth oratory in the following strain:
“So it was done, gentlemen! there was the platform with chairs on it,
and I making my way straight to it ...” (claps from the four gentlemen
behind, who looked graver still).
“Gentlemen, that was the way the thing was done, that was the way
the officials treated me” (greater agitation of the atmosphere at
each word). “That—was—the—way—it—was—done, at Exeter Hall, gentlemen
...” (pause with reference to notes). Then a violent attack on the
management and speakers at a recent meeting at Exeter Hall, and on
the officials who prevented this open-air orator from reaching the
platform, which he declared was _packed_.
Only last year the Park was put to better uses. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that 80 to 90 per cent. of the congregation of
an ordinary London church is composed of women. Realising that as
the people (or at least the men) did not come into the churches, the
Church must go out to the people, the Bishop of London bethought
himself to utilise Hyde Park. Thus it was that in the spring of 1907
open-air meetings were organised in Hyde Park, under the auspices of
his Evangelistical Council. These services took place on Monday nights.
About seven o’clock the bulk of the aristocracy have left the Park and
are wending their way homewards to dinner. But at that time another
class of people is free, the most of the shops are closed. Young men
and young women before going home to their supper take a stroll through
the Park to enjoy the fresh air.
This is the propitious moment.
These young people have nothing to do. It does not matter to them
whether they are home an hour earlier or an hour later. All they want
is a little fresh air and exercise, with a little amusement thrown in.
Some stop and listen to the band, which plays every evening and is
always well attended. Others lounge about and watch the smart vehicles
bearing their gaily dressed occupants homewards. Others, with no
particular object in view, stroll across the grass. Of course, a crowd
always attracts attention, and the moment it is noticed that any small
throng of people has assembled at one particular spot, others go to see
and hear what it is all about.
With a devotional meeting at the Church Army Chapel in Upper Berkeley
Street, the Bishop of London’s Evangelistical Mission began its Monday
evening services. Having collected a few followers, this little party
marched to Hyde Park, naturally picking up others on the way who had
been attracted by the crowd. Arrived at Hyde Park, the clergyman
conducting the meeting for the evening, proceeded to the sward near the
Marble Arch, and there, within a few hundred yards of Tyburn, the very
spot where Christian martyrs were hanged and sacrificed—unmolested and
undisturbed and absolutely free to express whatever thought came to
him—he held forth on the subject of the Gospel.
Could anything be more marvellous than the change that has come over
the spirit of the people since those terrible persecutions that took
place in the sixteenth century?
Until comparatively lately the speakers in Hyde Park were all of
a rough and tumble order, and so they mostly are still; but under
the leadership of the Bishop of London quite a new element has been
introduced, and excellent speakers, including not only ’Varsity men in
Holy Orders, but also men following other walks in life, now hold forth
in Hyde Park. To mention but a few, one finds the following well-known
names among the speakers in the summer of 1907:
The Rev. F. C. Webster, All Souls’, Langham Place.
The Rev. W. R. Mounsey, Secretary of the Bishop of London’s Council.
The Rev. Guy Rogers.
Mr. C. T. Studd, the noted cricketer, one of the famous “Cambridge
Seven” who volunteered for mission work in China.
The Rev. Russell Wakefield, St. Mary’s, Bryanston Square.
The Rev. S. A. Selwyn, Hampstead.
Colonel MᶜGregor.
Mr. Beresford Pate, the architect.
The Rev. H. S. Woolcombe, Oxford House.
The music in the Park is excellent, as may be seen by the list for
Sunday evenings in June 1907.
GREEN PARK. HYDE PARK.
(6 to 8 p.m.) (7.30 to 9.30 p.m.)
June 9th 2nd Life Guards 1st Life Guards.
June 16th Irish Guards Coldstream Guards.
June 23rd Scots Guards 2nd Life Guards.
June 30th 1st Life Guards Scots Guards.
Passing reference was made to Apsley House, which faces the band-stand,
in an earlier chapter. It is one of many magnificent mansions fringing
the Park, but is unique in its historic interest. I am fortunate in
enjoying the friendship of an able historian of our own day, who was
a constant visitor at Apsley House in the days of the late Duke of
Wellington, and he sends me the following notes concerning the building
and its associations:
“The house is built partly upon a site where an apple-woman kept a
stall. Her name was Allen. King George II. one day recognised her
husband as having been present at the battle of Dettingen, and granted
him the site, whereupon he built a small house. Along that side of
Piccadilly there were several roadside public-houses, particularly
beyond Park Lane (Tyburn Lane), where the rough holiday makers
pic-nicked, especially during the celebration of May Fair at the back.
Allen’s son about 1780 sold the ground where the fruit stall stood (the
stall is shown in a print dated 1766) to Lord Chancellor Apsley (Lord
Bathurst), who had a house built by the brothers Adam for himself.
“From a fund voted by Parliament for Wellington, Apsley House was
bought in 1828, but it is the private property of the Duke, and is not
held as a national trust settled upon the title, as Strathfieldsaye
is,—in virtue of his tenure of which, the Duke of Wellington annually
presents the Sovereign with a flag on the anniversary of the battle
of Waterloo. The house was re-fronted and much altered in 1828 by Sir
Geoffrey Wyatville, the picture gallery on the first floor (and the
rooms under) having been added for the purpose of housing the splendid
collection of heirloom pictures, captured from Joseph Bonaparte on the
field of Vittoria, and subsequently given by Ferdinand VII. to the
great Duke.
“The view of the Park and the Row from the balconies of this picture
gallery is very beautiful; probably it is the best view of the Park
available at any point. The room under the gallery facing the Park at
the south-west corner is still guarded by wooden shutters, and with
good reason, for there are contained the priceless treasures given to
the great Duke by governments and Sovereigns,—presentation swords and
caskets encrusted with gems, the great silver-gilt table service given
by the Portuguese nation, the famous Sèvres dinner service presented
by the French, the services given by the Spanish and Prussian nations,
the Waterloo shield, the insignia in brilliants of a score of Orders,
including the Golden Fleece, which is almost invariably returned, but
in this case, as a special honour, was granted permanently. Probably
no room in London except the Jewel House in the Tower contains so rare
a collection of priceless historic objects as this; and certainly no
private gallery in London can boast of such a collection of historic
pictures as the long gallery facing the Park, and the other rooms of
the mansion.
“The great Duke slept in a very small humble-looking room on the
ground-floor at the back, and overlooking the garden and the Park.
In the garden, which has some pretty shady trees, he used to take
exercise by working a garden watering-pump in the summer; and every
morning regularly, until within a few weeks of his death, he would
ride out, dressed in white or buff trousers strapped under the boots,
a blue coat buttoned up to the chin, brass buttons and a white stock.
He always left a little before nine, followed by a groom, and rode up
Constitution Hill and round to the Horse Guards.
“When the mob during the Reform Bill agitation stoned the house, the
windows of the gallery on the first floor fronting the Park were
broken, and some of those facing Piccadilly. The Duke thereupon caused
outside shutter blinds of steel to be fixed to the windows (similar
blinds still protect the picture gallery windows, but I think these
are now wood). Those in front were certainly removed by the second
Duke. When the first Duke was asked to remove them he is reported to
have said: ‘No! They shall remain where they are as long as I live,
as a sign of the gullibility of the mob, and the worthlessness of the
popularity for which they who give it can assign no reason.’
“There is a fine portrait of Napoleon as First Consul by Dabos in the
small yellow drawing-room of Apsley House, to which rather a curious
story is attached. In May 1824 the Duke wrote an invitation to dinner
to a Mr. Fleming. The messenger, by mistake, delivered it at the house
of another gentleman of the same name. Finding his error, the man went
again and asked for the return of the invitation. Mr. Fleming replied
that the invitation signed by the Duke had been delivered to him, and
he meant to avail himself of it, as he should never have such an honour
again—mistake or no mistake, he should come to dinner to Apsley House.
The Duke was told, and, after inviting him, could hardly refuse him
admittance, so made the best of it, though Mr. Fleming found a very
frigid reception. The next day he sent this fine picture to His Grace
by way of amends.
“At the foot of the great staircase is a gigantic nude statue of
Napoleon by Canova, a splendid work eleven feet high.
“In the long gallery overlooking the Row and the Park, surely one
of the most stately rooms in London, was held every recurring 18th
of June, to the end of the great Duke’s life, the Waterloo banquet,
where the dwindling band of companions in arms of the Chief met in the
glittering panoply of the brave days gone by, to celebrate the crowning
victory that brought peace to Europe. The well-known print by Moon
represents one of the last of these historic banquets, where, under
the splendid canvasses of Velasquez, Murillo, and Titian, the Duke of
Wellington is represented standing at the long, crowded dinner-table,
surrounded by his old comrades, to propose his annual toast. In the
large yellow drawing-room the portraits of many of the old generals
hang: Lord Anglesea, Picton, Hill, Somerset, Beresford, Alava, and the
rest of them, their strong faces glowing still with the bright brushes
of Lawrence and Pienemann, and their splendid uniforms shaming the
utilitarian khaki of to-day. Some of these great old soldiers, like
Lord Combermere—padded and dyed phantoms they seemed, as one recollects
them—were spared to ride in the Park almost daily within the memory of
those not yet effete, but not many of them outlived their great leader.”
A recent addition to the few pieces of statuary that enrich Hyde
Park is Watts’ colossal “Physical Energy,” which in 1907 was placed
on a site in Kensington Gardens, near the Serpentine. It is the most
majestic work of its kind that the nation possesses, and even now,
perhaps, we do not realise how splendid was the gift. The horse and
rider are early recollections of mine. When I was a girl some time in
the eighties, I remember being taken to Melbury Road by Dr. Bond, at
that time surgeon to Westminster Hospital, and also to the Metropolitan
Police, to see the great painter, G. F. Watts. At this period I was
painting a good deal myself, and exhibiting little pictures with the
Lady Artists, etc., and Dr. Bond, who was very fond of art and wished
to encourage me to take it up seriously, suggested this expedition to
Watts’ studio. I was a little alarmed as I drove up with the doctor in
his brougham, and the alarm was not decreased after walking up a flight
of stairs to see a little old gentlemen in a black velvet skull cap
step forth to greet us.
This was the great Watts himself. He seemed to be very old, although he
could not have been seventy, for he did not die for about twenty years
after that, during which time he re-married.
The things that impressed me most were the age of the artist, his
apparent feebleness, his great geniality and charm, and, beyond all
else, the enormous statue, “Physical Energy,” on which he was at that
time at work. He touched it and fondled it, stroked it, and spoke of
it with the warmest enthusiasm and love. His life’s interest seemed on
that occasion to be centred in his statue. He continued to work at it
for many years, after which it was exhibited.
Perhaps the most delightful modern innovation in Hyde Park, or rather
Kensington Gardens, is the arrangement for tea in the summer. The
ground is spread with little tables, sheltered beneath pretty shady
umbrellas, and shaded still further by the glorious elms and oaks and
limes. Here tea at a shilling a head, or at another part of the ground
for half that price, is served on warm days. It is quite a fashionable
place for little tea-parties, and bachelor-girls or old-maid men,
who live lives of solitude in “diggings” or clubs, come forth like
the butterflies and entertain their friends in this inexpensive yet
charming way, by giving a tea-fight within sight of where our good
Queen Victoria was born.
This is advance at the western end of the Park, but farther east, that
is to say in Piccadilly, still further advance is found. For within a
stone’s throw of Hyde Park Corner, and near where the Duke of Cambridge
lived so long, is a Ladies’ Club and also an Automobile Club. Ladies’
Clubs are not so new, although it is within the memory of many women of
fifty when the first women’s club was started by an Englishwoman, Mrs.
Croley, in New York. But even five years ago motors were of such recent
introduction that a club for enthusiasts would have been a meagre
affair, while now it is filled to overflowing. So quickly moves the
world.
What, one wonders, will be the next innovation in or near Hyde Park?
From the gaiety and riches of automobiles we turn to a sad and pathetic
spectacle,—from youth, health, and strength we pass to decay. Such is
the panorama of life’s history.
As we saw, the first review took place in Hyde Park in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth; the last thing of the kind was in December 1907, on
the occasion of the Dinner given by the _Daily Telegraph_ to the Indian
Mutiny veterans, when one of the most pathetic incidents of modern
times occurred within its gates. Lord Roberts reviewed his old comrades
of fifty years before, men long past their prime, old, some decrepid,
doubled with age, yet full of honour. As a result of this inspection,
the renowned Field-Marshal pleaded for the relief of the straitened
circumstances of these men, many of whom were in the workhouse; and
such is the charity of England, that in two days—His Majesty, as is
his custom, being in the forefront in any good cause—over £5000 was
subscribed in response, quickly followed by other large sums, to create
a fund for the benefit of these aged soldiers.
So the scene in Hyde Park constantly changes, ever holding the mirror
up to history and romance.