Souvenir of the Great Flower Shrine in Hyde Park made on Remembrance Day 4 August 1918

Public flower shrines commemorating the dead of World War I appeared in London from 1916. The Hyde Park shrine erected in August 1918 was the largest. In the first week 100,000 visited the shrine, with 200,000 flowers left there in 10 days. This napkin would have been sold as a souvenir to those visiting the shrine by street sellers operating in Hyde Park. The demand for such a souvenir reflects the significance of the shrine for bringing Londoners together in shared grief at a time when so many young men were being killed fighting in the war.
Similar souvenir napkins were printed for every large public event, ceremony or procession that occured in London from the late 19th to mid 20th century. The squares were imported into London from Japan pre-printed with a decorative border in up to 5 colours and a blank central area. Burgess was one of the main printer of such napkins that would be sold for one penny (1d) by street hawkers moving amongst the huge crowds that attended such popular events.
The paper napkins produced by Burgess during World War I are an indicator of the range of emotions experienced by the London crowd during these difficult years. These include jingoistic napkins commemorating the sale of war bonds and the capture of a German submarine through to poignant and memorial napkins, such as this one, that reflect a shared grief amongst the crowds that flocked to the Flower Shrine in Hyde Park in 1918 and the public funeral of those killed in the daylight raid on London by German warplanes on July 7th 1917
The text printed on the napkins and programmes usually included a timetable of an organised public event, pageant or procession often reproduced from a daily newspaper report. Programmes and serviettes were printed either up to a few days before the event or on the day itself and often include mistakes in type and grammar reflecting the rush to print such items in time.
Despite the practical information on the napkins their prime purpose was that of souvenir for keeping as a memory of an event as indicated in a report in the Times newspaper of November 1907 where it was noted, during a German Imperial Visit to London that during the period of waiting for the royal procession on its return journey from the Guildhall ‘a brisk trade was done' in programmes printed on Japanese paper which were recommended by the vendors as ‘souvenirs and pocket handkerchiefs’ – two diverse uses which only a street hawker would think of reconciling.'