Alice Ayres was an English nursemaid honoured for her bravery in rescuing the children in her care from a house fire. Ayres was a household assistant and nursemaid to the family of her brother-in-law and sister, Henry and Mary Ann Chandler.
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Contemporary newspaper illustration of the Union Street fire, showing Ayres preparing to drop a child to safety
Alice Ayres's grave
The Union Street Fire, Walter Crane
Alice Ayres's memorial tablet, designed by William De Morgan and added to the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in 1902
Ayres StreetAbout this person
Alice Ayres was an English nursemaid honoured for her bravery in rescuing the children in her care from a house fire. Ayres was a household assistant and nursemaid to the family of her brother-in-law and sister, Henry and Mary Ann Chandler. The Chandlers owned an oil and paint shop in Union Street, Southwark, then just south of London, and Ayres lived with the family above the shop. In 1885, a fire broke out in the shop, and Ayres rescued three of her nieces from the burning building, before falling from a window and suffering fatal injury.
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