 At the unveiling of the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice the Lord Mayor, Alfred Newton, had remarked that it was "intended to perpetuate the acts of heroism which belonged to the working classes", while George Frederic Watts, although he was opposed in principle to discrimination based on class and saw the Memorial as being theoretically open to all classes, had remarked that "the higher classes do not or ought not to require reminders or inducements".Watts saw the purpose of his Memorial not as a commemoration of deeds, but as a tool for the education of the lower classes.Watts's view was shared by others who sought to provide inspirational material on British heroes, and authors writing about Ayres systematically altered the fact that the children rescued were members of her family, instead describing them as the children of her employer.