The memorial was designed by J. L. Pearson for the family of the architect Sydney Smirke. Smirke’s youngest daughter, Margaret Jane, died of tuberculosis in 1873, aged nineteen, and was buried in what is now Woodbury Park Cemetery. Sydney Smirke was subsequently buried with her following his death in 1877. The Friends of Woodbury Park Cemetery suggest that Smirke, who was a friend of Pearson, may have discussed the design of his daughter’s memorial with him and envisaged it as his own eventual memorial also.