Once Again, Why Public ? John W. Henneberger Origins of Fully Funded Public Parks

t is commonly held that on the outskirts of , Eng- land, was the first fully funded public park. The Birkenhead Park project began in 1841 as a venture initiated by municipal authorities with partici- pation by private developers, and differed from previous efforts to create Iparks for the English general public. Birkenhead embodied a vision of the future in which a large area of land within a town was to be set aside in perpetuity for the specific purpose of affording an amenity site for leisure and recreational activity for use by all the people of the community. Moreover, the people would tax themselves for that purpose. There had been previous “public” events are held today in any modern parks in all of the cultures of the landscaped urban . An ancient and medieval worlds, where ancient Babylonian text (ca. 2000 BCE) parks were part of the ambience and indicates the public nature of such public activity of the city.The concept open spaces. People ate splendid food, of the urban landscaped area emerged drank beverages, rejoiced in the court- some 6,000 years ago in the first cities yards, and thronged for celebration; of Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, monkeys, elephants, water buffalo, China, and a few other parts of the and other exotic animals jostled each world. Landscaped spaces were ini- other in the public squares (Cooper tially located within the inner religious 1983, 50). Cities in this period (4000- and political sanctuaries that were 1000 BCE) were centers for managing reserved for royalty, the priesthood, rural districts, for craft making and and privileged citizenry, though most trading, and for military, administra- had some public aspects. The well- tive, and cultural-ideological activities known “Park in the Center of City” of where religious and political events Mesopotamian Nippur of 1,500 BCE is were important in holding the cohe- a representative example of a religious siveness of society. Such public places landscaped area within the city’s were maintained by a religious and temenos that served as a site for ritual political leadership who ran the affairs (Kramer 1963, 64). It was an irregular- of the city-state. Similar landscaped ly shaped 21-acre area that was most public places existed in ancient Egypt likely connected to nearby temple and China. The great Shang-lin parks complexes, and possibly served as the connected to the ancient Chinese cap- site for the New Year’s Festival, or per- itals provided a garden setting for haps held plants and animals for offer- palace, temple, and tomb, where the ings to the god of the city.Such spaces emperor and nobility undertook hunt- often took on aspects of a public park ing, fasting was performed, and rituals in the lives of the people when used at were held. The “Park as Empire” festival time. Festivals and public played various roles in Chinese life.

Volume 19 • Number 2 2002 13 Once Again, Why Public Parks?

Many governmental units were located bly in Philadelphia for around the within the park, such as the royal mint, Pennsylvania Statehouse—later Inde- the headquarters of the tax collector, pendence Hall—for proper walks and even a prison (Schafer 1968). The planted with suitable trees for shade.) modern-day National Capital Parks in The use of undesirable plots and rem- Washington, D.C., have many of the nants of city land for parks was to characteristics and uses of the ancient become common practice. At both Chinese Supreme Imperial Parks, in Birkenhead and ’s Cen- that they provide landscaped back- tral Park, undesirable, uneconomical drops for important buildings in Unit- lands were converted to parks. ed States governmental operations, In the ancient cities, emperors, vic- including the Capitol, White House, torious generals and the wealthy creat- and Treasury Department, among oth- ed and financed the construction and ers. operation of parks for the public. The Landscaped backdrops were preva- practice of the elite part of society pro- lent in ancient Greek and Roman viding landscaped open spaces for the cities: around the agora, the temples of public continued on through the the gods and goddesses, the monu- medieval period into the European mental public buildings, and the gym- renaissance. Royalty often used their nasiums. Roman imperial rulers pro- private parks for public purposes. In vided green open spaces for public use the sixteenth century, Queen Eliza- between theaters, baths, temples, gov- beth I opened some of her royal parks ernment buildings, and residences. In in so the public could watch the Augustan era, a major building the military reviews she held there. program for Rome was concentrated Some English royal parks remained around the centers of Campus Mar- private to the monarchs; others tius, the Forum Romanum, and the became ceremonial points for public Palatine. Spaces around these political receptions on important holidays in structures were landscaped and the same way that ancient Greek kings opened to the public (Van Sickle assembled the public at the Acropolis 1948, 397). Augustus used his friend for ritual and celebration (Lasdun Maecenas, an unassuming Etruscan of 1992, 42). By ’s time equestrian rank, to aid in his rebuild- (mid- to late nineteenth century), ing of Rome. Maecenas bought a plot much of the royal park space had been of ground just outside the city walls opened to the public. Hyde Park, for that was an old city dump and pauper instance, was opened to the public by burying ground. Here he laid out a Charles I about 1635. George IV in splendid park for the general public. 1826 acted on a report on the state of In this summery Mediterranean London’s royal parks by issuing region, people were inclined to stroll instructions that “the whole range and such landscaped areas and enjoy each extent of Parks should be thrown open other’s company. (In similar fashion, for the gratification and enjoyment of many centuries later, landscaped areas the Public” (Lasdun 1992, 13). Public were decreed by the Colonial Assem- monies given by Parliament to the

14 The George Wright FORUM Once Again, Why Public Parks? Office of the King’s Works maintained the Regent’s Park project with the such parks. The public usage of a Prince of Wales through the Depart- royal park was at first a rather limited, ment of Woods and Forests. They privileged activity, confined by dictate took a roughly circular-shaped prop- of royalty to a select class of socially erty of about 1,000 acres that had acceptable people who held keys to been a royal forest in medieval times the locked park gates. This privileged and a hunting preserve and Mary-le- use was gradually eased. Many of these bone Park in the Tudor era and devel- parks became full public parks about oped it into a residential park (Saun- the time urban development reach ders 1969). Regent’s Park thus went their boundaries. Most have since through virtually all the stages of Eng- become integral parts of the London lish park development: first a medieval scene. royal forest, then a royal hunting pre- The opening of royal parks for serve, then a private park, and finally a public use was one part of a growing public park open to all. Nash and Rep- idea of the park as public venue as ton combined urban architecture with England moved from monarchial con- country landscape elements by setting trol to a democracy. Walking became a terraces around a park that made up national pastime in the Tudor period. about half the total acreage of the The general public in the cities need- development. They combined the ed areas in which to stroll. Church- orderliness of Georgian London with yards provided opportunities for the openness and wildness of the leisure time in many of the provincial countryside. Nash reversed the visual towns of England. Cemeteries were direction of the palace and manor pleasure grounds for the diversion of park, where residences were sur- gentry. The general public for years rounded by parkland. He framed the had the grounds of commons for out- park with handsome terraces of classic door activity. Gradually, however, the design that housed people who then common was made unavailable to had magnificent views across the park. them under enclosure practices. With Nash and Repton wanted to create an the rapid expansion of English cities in-city relationship with nature similar after the Restoration, there began a to that enjoyed by many people in the movement toward parks as integral English countryside who had a Geor- parts of cities for the public at large. gian mansion set in a park of modest Londoners began to see the delights of proportions. Royalty and the wealthy, placing their residences adjacent to of course, had great countryside the inner-city royal parks: St. James’s palaces and mansions surrounded by Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, and expansive parks. Merely well-to-do Kensington Garden. To have a resi- people sought to follow the essayist, dence overlooking one of these parks poet, and politician Joseph Addison’s became the preferred way to live. advice in The Spectator (Essay no. In the early 1830s, the prominent 414, 1712) to make a neat mansion architect John Nash and the landscape pleasantly situated in a park that architect Humphry Repton worked on would show a “pretty landskip of their

Volume 19 • Number 2 2002 15 Once Again, Why Public Parks? possessions.” from those created under royal and Such rural landscape values were private initiative to those that were introduced into the English urban fab- fully publicly funded. The transition ric during the cultural transition from occurred within the context of a pub- late feudalism to a full capitalistic lic park movement that sought to meet economy. The park and the public recreational needs and deal with the square were arenas for working out social problems of poverty, disease, major class tensions in the struggles and wretched living conditions of the over public and private rights. With lower classes caught up in the excess- the public square and the park, the es of the Industrial Age. People were English were the first to develop effec- moving to English cities in uncontrol- tive ways of integrating elements of the lable numbers. Unplanned tenement natural landscape into the urban fab- housing quickly ate up open space. ric. The public square was one model Efforts were made in the 1840s to con- that was taken and augmented with vert some commons to public parks in greater amounts of nature so as to form those cities associated with manufac- a large public park. The residential turing and in the towns that had fac- square and the large public park, says toring systems. J.C. Louden, writing in Henry Lawrence, are cultural acts that Gardener’s Magazine in 1829, cam- carry with it some expression of the paigned for public parks as “Breathing social values of class distinction, Places” for towns and cities. Democra- domestic isolation, and private open tic political action toward this goal space that later forms the basis for sub- moved with the issuing of reports on urban living (Lawrence 1993, 60). the problems and the need for open The park portion of Regent’s Park was space to solve the lack of working- gradually opened to the public. Resi- class recreation. In 1841, Parliament dential subscription maintained the voted the sum of £10,000 to promote park for a number of years until it the opening of parks, on the condition became a fully funded public park. that political bodies wishing to benefit Like most of the early large urban from this fund should match such parks, Regent’s Park had a zoo, a band loans with at least an equal amount of kiosk, meeting place structures, an their own money. Applications were open-air concert theatre, and playing immediately made by numerous pub- fields. On a trip to England in 1839, lic entities. Other avenues to create the American painter George Catlin public parks included exchanging sold two grizzly bears he had brought Crown properties in one area to pro- from America to Regent’s Park opera- duce park sites where there were no tors (Catlin 1852, 1:28-33). In time royal parks. Wherever such a residen- the park itself became a historical tial development as Regent’s Park was monument, as have many famous proposed, it became government poli- parks, to be placed on lists of historical cy to require the local municipal body properties worthy of preservation. to purchase the residential strip to be Public parks in early nineteenth- let out as building plots. The income century England made the transition from the plots, and the increased value

16 The George Wright FORUM Once Again, Why Public Parks? of the property adjacent to the public A Birkenhead Improvement Com- park, would pay for the cost of the mission was set up under an Act of park. Within this general milieu, Parliament that gave them authority to Birkenhead Park came about. implement the zoning they desired. In The city of Birkenhead in the early 1841 the idea for a Birkenhead Park 1820s was one of series of dormitory was raised. Two years later, empow- towns that emerged in Great Britain as ered by a Third Improvement Act, the a suburb of a main city to serve the res- Birkenhead Commissioners were idential needs of the Industrial Revo- allowed to purchase land for a park lution. A steam ferry service in 1820 with a loan of £60,000 made to them provided commuting between Liver- by the central government. Birken- pool and Birkenhead. Prosperous head was the first town to apply to Par- Birkenhead residents commuting to liament for permission to use public Liverpool wanted a small version of funds for the purpose of establishing a what the wealthy possessed in the public park. The money was bor- larger private park estates in the coun- rowed on behalf of the city ratepayers tryside and in the in-city residences of with the proviso that not less than 70 the kind connected to Regent’s Park acres was to be set aside for the “free and to a similar park–residential devel- recreation of the town’s inhabitants” opment in Liverpool itself, Prince’s within a 226-acre area along an estu- Park. This desire was coupled with ary across from the city of Liverpool. recognition by the Birkenhead munic- The resulting Birkenhead Park ipal authorities of the need to control became the world’s first publicly fully and establish municipal power over funded park. community development. In effect, The section of land chosen for the they began to zone the community. A park was an unattractive, swampy,low- park became a prime focal point of lying tract at the foot of a sandy ridge that zoning as well as figuring in the that lay entirely within the town. The economic development of the sub- area of land was a mixture of fields, urbs. Parks were also desired objects marsh, and commons that contained a in a growing Reform movement. small farmhouse, which was a known Robert Owen, the Welsh manufactur- beer den where illegal gambling and er turned reformer, proposed what dog fighting took place. One hundred was later termed the “garden city,” and twenty-five acres of this site was where dwelling units were arranged designated for public use. The around open landscaped spaces with remaining acreage was sold for private community facilities connected to a residential development (Borough of central square. Owens was convinced Wirral Leisure Services and Tourism that environment affected character. Department 2000, 6). The general Improved surroundings, including relationship between the park and parks and gardens, would have a salu- associated housing had its inspiration tary effect upon workers, and this in in John Nash’s work at Regent’s Park. turn would benefit the industry of the At Birkenhead, detached villas were nation (Cole 1925). located on terraces surrounding the

Volume 19 • Number 2 2002 17 Once Again, Why Public Parks? park. The proceeds from the sale of struction of the park. He thought it a the building plots were sufficient to credit and an honor to make some- recoup all the public costs incurred by thing handsome and good out of the the purchase of the land and the con- undesirable property. A completed struction of the park. There was a plan was soon presented to the com- mutually beneficial blending of an mittee, which approved it. Preparatory ornamental public park with private work began under an individual who residential estates that seems to have would become the park’s first superin- been the outcome of a self-conscious tendent. Lakes were excavated and the linking of the commercially profitable major planting of trees was carried out with the socially useful. This combina- in the planting seasons of autumn tion of values that early Victorians 1844 and spring 1845. The planting strove to achieve proved influential for of grassy areas followed. A prime fea- subsequent park projects in Great ture was the irregular shape of the park Britain and then in America with the set within a built-up suburban setting creation of New York City’s Central of a grid of straight streets. A circula- Park. Essential to the existence of the tion system provided for carriage park were steady income streams for pleasure traffic around and through park development and maintenance the park. Within the park there was a costs. The park contributed signifi- separate circulation system for pedes- cantly to the town’s tax base. The park trians. There were four small lodges at fostered rising property values. Com- the park’s gates, quaintly named the missioners planned the character of Gothic, Italian, Castellated and Nor- the housing and park as one entity. man lodges. Bridges across sections of Residential styles were confined to the lakes and over roads were Victori- early English, Elizabethan, and Tudor. an in style. The park was completed in Architectural controls were designed 1847. It had a park superintendent to promote messages of authority, dig- and a staff of keepers and maintenance nity, and political power. The park personnel that were paid out of munic- also was to reflect these purposes in ipal funding. It was to be opened to acting as an attractive backdrop for the the public without restrictions. spatial residences abutting it. Howev- Birkenhead was conceived in a pas- er, the pursuit of the park was not toral landscape tradition, which entirely in the public interest. Several resembled grounds surrounding a commissioners were speculative own- country mansion, except there was no ers of the land to be purchased for the central residential structure. The first park and the potential residential public parks were essentially transfers lands surrounding it. of the palace and countryside manor The well-known English landscape park landscapes without that central architect, Joseph Paxton, whose work structure. The residences surrounded on Liverpool’s Prince’s Park had the park, rather than the park sur- brought him to the attention of the rounding the residences. The vision committee, was engaged in August sought by Paxton featured islands in 1843 to design and supervise the con- lakes, winding paths, open glades, and

18 The George Wright FORUM Once Again, Why Public Parks? wooded areas designed for strolling garden architect, writing and quiet reflection. While some of the on English garden park design in open spaces were suitable for active 1852. Smith’s commentary influenced games, Paxton’s main emphasis for many park designers’ works (Smith Birkenhead was on the passive enjoy- 1852). visited ment of pastoral landscaped scenery. Birkenhead in 1850 and 1859. He In time, sport clubs imposed cricket, noted the carriage roads, walks, and archery, quoits, and football ground aquatic ponds. He recorded the conversions of many of the open mounds made natural with trees, spaces. Considerable modification of shrubs, flowering plants, rural lodges, Paxton’s design occurred over the temple pavilion structures, bridges, years as the park went through what bandstand, cricket and archery was to be a typical transformation of grounds, and the verdant valleys. He most urban parks from initial areas of commented that “all this magnificent pastoral quality to busy places for pleasure-ground is entirely, unre- active sports and large-scale public servedly and forever, the people’s events. There were times of deteriora- own” (Olmsted 1859, 62-64). He later tion of the landscaped areas, followed was to incorporate many of the fea- by restoration. Commemorative trees tures he saw at Birkenhead into the were planted. Memorials and sculp- design that he and Calvert Vaux pre- tures were erected. Unemployment pared for New York City’s Central relief schemes were undertaken within Park. Olmsted credited the develop- the park in 1878-1879, 1893, and ment of the American urban public 1947. Two World Wars intruded on park system to the inspiration he the park. Different buildings and received from his Birkenhead visits. structures were erected and then According to the historian George demolished. The Friends of Birken- Chadwick, the general design of head Association was formed in 1970 British public parks has changed little to aid park administrators in control- since Paxton’s day, “although else- ling intrusions and raising monies to where there are now examples of the maintain the park. Corporate sponsors acceptance of twentieth-century aes- provided monies for restoration proj- thetic standards in this field” (Chad- ects. The park was included in the late wick 1961, 253). Olmsted was to set a 1980s in a regional political body’s somewhat different style in his parks “Leisure Strategy” to promote in America: a wilder, more rugged tourism. This pattern of creation, style. He did borrow the Birkenhead intrusion, deterioration, restoration, procedure of placing the park within and then a re-focusing on the heritage an urban residential setting that has and economic value to the community, strong commercial connotations. This was to be repeated in many urban commercial aspect also was applied to parks around the world. the early expansive national parks of “There is more to be gained by a the American West, where tourism study of it [Birkenhead Park] than in played an important role in their cre- any others,” said Charles Smith, the ation. Starting with Regent’s and

Volume 19 • Number 2 2002 19 Once Again, Why Public Parks? Birkenhead parks, the idea of a resi- valid proposition for most communi- dential belt around or in association ties. with an interior public park is still a

References Borough of Wirral Leisure Services and Tourism Department. 2000. Birkenhead People’s Park: Historical Survey and Analysis. Birkenhead, Wirral: Leisure Services and Tourism Department. Catlin, George. 1852. Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium, Being Notes of Eight Years’ Travels and Residence in Europe with His North American Indian Collection. 2 vols. London: Published by the Author at His Indian Collection, No. 6, Waterloo Place. Chadwick, George. 1961. The Works of Sir Joseph Paxton. London: Architectural Press. Cole, G.D.H. 1925. Robert Owen. Boston: Little, Brown. Cooper, Jerrod S. 1983. The Curse of Agade. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Kramer, Samuel Noah. 1963. The Sumerians, Their History, Culture and Character. : University of Chicago Press. Lasdun, Susan. 1992. The English Park: Royal, Private and Public. New York: Vendone Press. Lawrence, Henry W.1993. The greening of the public squares of London: Transformations of urban land- scapes and ideals. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 83:1 (March). Olmsted, Frederick Law. 1859. Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England. Columbus, Oh.: Joseph H. Riley and Co. Saunders, Ann. 1969. Regent’s Park: A Study in the Development of the Area from 1068 to the Present Day. New York: Augustus M. Kelley. Schafer, Edward H. 1968. Hunting parks and animal enclosures in ancient China. Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 2, 325-341. Smith, Charles. 1852. Parks and Pleasure Grounds. London: Reeve & Co. Van Sickle, C.E. 1948. A Political and Cultural History of the Ancient World: From Prehistoric Times to the Dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

John W.Henneberger, 3256 NW Harrison Boulevard, Corvallis, Oregon 97330; [email protected] ❖

20 The George Wright FORUM