In a small park nestled beneath the concrete towers of the Barbican in London, a modest memorial bears the names of dozens of ordinary people who died while rescuing others from mortal danger.

For the first time in nearly 80 years, a new name was yesterday added to the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, which has stood for more than a century as a testament to “heroism in everyday life”.

At a ceremony in Postman’s Park in the heart of the City of London yesterday, a plaque was unveiled to 30-year-old Leigh Pitt, who died in June 2007 while saving a boy from drowning in a canal.

Eight decades after the last name was inscribed in 1931, Mr Pitt’s story has been added to stand alongside the heroic deeds of 53 others who lost their lives to save another.

Times Archive, 1887: Memorial suggestion

The character of the nation as a people of great deeds is one that should never be lost sight of

• Opening of the Postmen's Park, 1900

• Fire and loss of life in the Borough, 1887

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• Postman's Park - Watts Gallery

Mr Pitt, a printworker from Surrey, died after jumping into the canal at Thamesmead, in southeast London, to save the nine-year-old boy.

Mr Pitt, who was there fishing, managed to keep Harley Bagnall-Taylor above water while passers-by threw a hosepipe to the child, but Mr Pitt was unable to stay afloat or find a hand-hold in the high-sided canal walls, and drowned before he himself could be saved.

His colleagues and his fiancée, Hema Shah, have been campaigning for a memorial to Mr Pitt’s sacrifice, and approached the Diocese of London to suggest updating the Watts Memorial in the churchyard at St Botolph’s without Aldersgate.

Ms Shah, 38, who had been with Mr Pitt for six years, said: “It is a huge honour. In my eyes Leigh will always be a hero, but this is an opportunity for people to become aware of his actions, too.

“He would have never questioned the decision he made that day. He saw a child in need and he would never have lived with himself if had he not done something — that is the sort of person he was.”

Accompanied by the Lady Mayoress of London, a small crowd gathered yesterday in Postman’s Park, named after the postmen who worked at the former post office headquarters nearby, to see the hand-painted plaque unveiled at the memorial.

George Frederic Watts, one of the foremost painters of his day, wrote to The Times in 1887 to suggest commemorating Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee by creating a memorial as a “record of the stories of heroism in everyday life”.

Watts wrote: “It must surely be a matter of regret when names worthy to be remembered and stories stimulating and instructive are allowed to be forgotten.”

He explained that a memorial to these “likely to be forgotten heroes” would make London “richer by a work that is beautiful, and our nation richer by a record that is infinitely honourable”.

Over the next decade Watts collected newspaper cuttings and obituaries of those who had died while saving others from harm, and tiles were made by William de Morgan, and later Royal Doulton, bearing their names and tragic stories. In 1900 the Lord Mayor of London opened the “gallery” to the public.

One name commemorated is that of Alice Ayres, a young servant in The Borough who died while saving three of her master’s children from a burning building in 1885. She threw the children to safety from an upstairs window but, overcome by fumes, missed the mattress as she jumped from the blazing window and fell to her death.

Miss Ayres’s story became the inspiration for Natalie Portman’s character in the film of Patrick Marber’s play Closer, when she steals Alice Ayres’s identity as her own from the plaque in Postman’s Park.

After Watts’s death in 1904 the practice of adding new plaques was largely discontinued and stopped completely after 1931.

PC Edward Greenoff was one of the last names to be added to the gallery, after he was caught in the great Silvertown explosion while rescuing people trapped in a burning TNT factory in 1917.

His granddaughter, Barbara Hird, 73, discovered his plaque in the 1950s. She said: “Adding new names is a good idea. There’s plenty of room. The military have their own memorials to brave deeds, and the police, too, sometimes, but ordinary civilians are often forgotten in the mists of time.”

Mr Pitt’s fiancée hopes that his story will also be an inspiration to others. Ms Shah said: “Leigh showed strength of human courage and he thought of another before himself. Sometimes it is easier for people to turn a blind eye and I would hope Leigh’s actions would inspire someone to help another.”

A spokesman for the Diocese of London said: “Watts created the memorial to pay tribute to unsung heroes and it is appropriate that Mr Pitt should be commemorated in this way. The Diocese welcomes the renewed interest in this important part of London’s heritage.

“We would consider applications for further commemorative plaques, on individual merit, for acts of remarkable heroism.”

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