Plaque | War dead | WW1

Harmsworth - IWM

Erection date: 2014

Inscription

In 1926 Harold Harmsworth, the first Viscount Rothermere, bought the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, popularly known as Bedlam, and generously donated them to the people of Southwark as a park named after his mother, Geraldine Mary Harmsworth.

Later, Lord Rothermere felt it was right that the former hospital should become the home of the Imperial War Museum as two of his sons, Vyvyan and Vere, had died during the First World War. The museum moved to this site in 1936 and has remained here ever since.

In 2014 to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, IWM completed a major regeneration of the building and its galleries. In this it was strongly supported by the IWM Foundation, chaired by Harold Harmsworth's great-grandson, Jonathan, the fourth Viscount Rothermere.

Site: Berlin Wall - SE1 & Harmsworth (2 memorials)

SE1, Lambeth Road, Imperial War Museum

The Harmsworth plaque is inside the entrance lobby to the Museum, just to the right of our photo.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
Harmsworth - IWM

Subjects commemorated i

Bethlehem Hospital 1&2

A priory for the Order of the Star of Bethlehem, built in 1247 on Bishopsgate...

Read More

World War 1

We'd always assumed that this war was known as the Great War until WW2 came a...

Read More

Geraldine Mary Harmsworth

Mother of Lord Rothermere.   Born in Dublin as Geraldine Mary Maffett, the da...

Read More

Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere

Newspaper owner. He and his brother Alfred, later Lord Northcliffe, developed...

Read More

Show all 7

This section lists the other memorials at the same location as the memorial on this page:
Harmsworth - IWM

Also at this site i

Berlin Wall - SE1

Berlin Wall - SE1

{On a nearby plaque:} Section of the Berlin Wall 'Change Your Life' by the gr...

Read More

Nearby Memorials

St Olave, Silver Street - destroyed

St Olave, Silver Street - destroyed

EC2, Noble Street

We originally questioned the date of this plaque but Melissa Harrison wrote and convinced us that it probably is 17th century.   This rea...

2 subjects commemorated
Buddy Holly

Buddy Holly

W6, Queen Caroline Street, 45, Hammersmith Apollo

We took a (very bad) photo of this plaque some years ago. The theatre was closed at the time, but the plaque could be seen in the foyer, ...

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Anglo-Dutch friendship

Anglo-Dutch friendship

E1, St Katharine's Lock, Dockmaster's house

We've not done well with this memorial. Can't explain the connection (assuming there is one) between King William and St Katharine's Doc...

2 subjects commemorated, 4 creators
St Peters Church

St Peters Church

EC1, Clerkenwell Road, St Peter's Church

We visited this site on a sunny Sunday morning - a short bike ride in reality but more like hundreds of miles to a quiet Italian town: th...

2 subjects commemorated
Jubilee House

Jubilee House

WC1, Gray's Inn Road

Jubilee House was opened on June 21st 1985 by Joan Bartlett, O.B.E., Vice President of the National Federation of Housing Associations in...

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator