Two early contenders for the title of first public park were the Royal Victoria Park, Bath and Victoria Park (Vicky Park), Bethnal Green, East London (see the aerial photo above, taken from the internet). By the 1830s J.C. Loudon’s (s.p.b.) campaigning for public ‘walks’ was reaching a wide audience, particularly through his articles in the Gardener’s Magazine, one particularly influential one being ‘Hints for Breathing Spaces’. The Royal Victoria Park, Bath, created on previously common-land and funded by two wealthy locals and more modest subscriptions from many others, was technically open to the public although certain standards of dress and behaviour were expected. This Park was perceived as an asset to the town’s tourist industry developed on the Spa.
The public parks movement in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign was then one element in the growing movement to improve public health and an increasing acceptance that Parliament had a responsibility in this regard. In the late 1830s a Parliamentary Committee was formed to examine ‘the best means of securing Open Spaces in the vicinity of populous Towns as Public Walks’ (for the issue of ‘walks’ s.p.b.s). The Committee’s chairman R.A. Slaney, although from the gentry class, believed that Parliament should legislate to improve housing and sanitation – these public health thrusts being underpinned by the hypothesis that if the working (‘labouring’) class lived in better conditions and a healthier environment then they would work better and the economy would benefit.
Possibly the most pernicious living area for the labouring class by the 1840s was the east-end of London. Notions as to how to improve this large area centred on two ideas; driving new wide roads through the maze of narrow alleys, streets and rookeries which were the product of un-regulated speculative development and, secondly, the creation of a large public park. Both improvements were overseen James Pennethorne (architect and civil servant), the latter resulting in the creation of one of the best known parks in Britain, Victoria Park, London.
(To be continued).