Bethnal Green is a
London Underground station in
Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is an area in the East End of London northeast of Charing Cross. The area emerged from the small settlement which developed around the Green, much of which survives today as Bethnal Green Gardens, beside Cambridge Heath Road. By t ...
, London, served by the
Central line. It lies between
Liverpool Street and
Mile End stations, is in
Travelcard Zone 2
Fare zone 2 is an inner zone of Transport for London's zonal fare system used for calculating the price of tickets for travel on the London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway and, since 2007, on National Rail services.
...
, and is open 24 hours on a Friday and Saturday as part of the
Night Tube
The Night Tube and London Overground Night Service, often referred to simply as Night Tube, is a service pattern on the London Underground ("Tube") and London Overground systems which provides through-the-night services on Friday and Saturday ...
service. The station was opened as part of the long planned Central line eastern extension on 4 December 1946, having previously been used as an
air-raid shelter
Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack (but many ...
. On 3 March 1943, 173 people, including 62 children, were killed in a crush while attempting to enter the shelter, in what is believed to be the largest loss of civilian life in the UK during the
Second World War.
The station is an example of the style adopted by
London Transport for new tube stations under the
New Works Programme of 1935–1940. Extensive use is made of pale yellow tiling, originally manufactured by
Poole Pottery
Poole Pottery is a British pottery brand, now based in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, England. As a company, it was founded in 1873 on Poole quayside in Dorset, where it continued to produce pottery by hand before moving its factory operations ...
. This has been replicated during the 2007 modernisation although several panels of original tiling were retained on the platforms. The finishes include relief tiles, showing symbols of London and the area served by the
London Passenger Transport Board, designed by
Harold Stabler. The station entrances, all in the form of subway access staircases to the subterranean ticket hall, all show the design influences of
Charles Holden
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...
, the consulting architect for London Transport at this time.
History
Development
The 1935–40
London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB)
New Works Programme included a new deep level station in Bethnal Green as part of the Central line extension from Liverpool Street to
Ongar and Woodford over the
London & North Eastern Railway suburban branch to
Epping and Ongar in Essex, as well as a new underground line between
Leytonstone and
Newbury Park mostly under the
Eastern Avenue to serve the new suburbs under-development in the north
Ilford and the
Hainault Loop
The Hainault Loop was originally opened as the Fairlop Loop, a branch line of the Great Eastern Railway (GER). It once connected Woodford on the Ongar (now Epping) branch to Ilford on the Main Line, with an eastward connection for goods, ...
.
Wartime disaster
Construction of the eastern extension of the Central line began in the 1930s and the tunnels were almost complete at the outbreak of the
Second World War although rails had not been laid. The facilities at Bethnal Green were requisitioned in 1940 at the onset of the first Blitz and administration was assigned to the local authority, the
Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green, under the supervision of the "Regional Commissioners", the generic name for the London
Civil Defence Service
The Civil Defence Service was a civilian volunteer organisation in Great Britain during World War II. Established by the Home Office in 1935 as Air Raid Precautions (ARP), its name was officially changed to the Civil Defence Service (CD) in 1941 ...
. Heavy air raids began in October and thousands of people took shelter there, often remaining overnight. Use of the shelter dwindled in 1941 as the air forces of
Germany and
Italy were redirected away from the United Kingdom and against the
Soviet Union. A relative lull occurred although the number of shelterers rose again when retaliatory bombing in response to
Royal Air Force raids was expected.
On 3 March 1943, the British media reported a heavy RAF
raid on Berlin
The Raid on Berlin took place in October 1760 during the Third Silesian War (part of the Seven Years' War) when Austrian and Russian forces occupied the Prussian capital of Berlin for several days. After raising money from the city, and with t ...
on the night of 1/2 March. The
air-raid Civil Defence siren
A civil defense siren, also known as an air-raid siren or tornado siren, is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. It is sometimes sounded again to indicate the danger has pas ...
sounded at 8:17 p.m., beginning a large and orderly flow of people down the blacked-out staircase from the street. A middle-aged woman and a child fell over, three steps up from the base and others fell around her, tangled in an immovable mass which grew, as they struggled, to nearly 300 people. Some got free but 173, most of them women and children, were
crushed
Crushed may refer to:
* "Crushed" (''Ms. Marvel''), a 2022 episode of the American television series ''Ms. Marvel''
* "Crushed" (Roland Lee Gift song) a 2009 single by Roland Lee Gift
* "Crushed" (''The Suite Life of Zack & Cody'' episode), an ...
and
asphyxiated
Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects primarily the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that can ...
and about 60 others were taken to hospital. An
Air Raid Warden
Air Raid Precautions (ARP) refers to a number of organisations and guidelines in the United Kingdom dedicated to the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. Government consideration for air raid precautions increased in the 1920s an ...
's report, written at 5.30 a.m. on 4 March, described the event as "Panic ... apparently caused by a person falling & bringing would-be shelterers to the ground. Death by asphyxiation in the subsequent stampede was the main cause of the fatalities."
News of the disaster was withheld for 36 hours and reporting of what had happened was censored, giving rise to allegations of a cover-up, although it was in line with existing wartime reporting restrictions. Among the reports which never ran was one filed by Eric Linden of the ''
Daily Mail'', who witnessed the disaster. Information which was provided was sparse.
Fuller details were eventually released on 20 January 1945, the cause having been "kept a secret for 22 months because the government felt the information might have resulted in the Germans' continuing air raids with the intention of causing similar panics". When the Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill, saw the report on 6 April saying that the cause was public panic during an air raid, he determined that it should be suppressed until the end of hostilities as it would be an "invitation to repeat" to the enemy and also as it contradicted earlier official comments that there was no panic; although
Herbert Morrison disagreed and
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...
(MP for the nearby
Limehouse constituency) wanted to deny rumours that the panic was due to "Jews and/or Fascists".
The results of the official investigation were not released until 1946. At the end of the war, the Minister of Home Security, Herbert Morrison, quoted from a secret report to the effect that there had been a panic, caused by the discharge of Z Battery anti-aircraft rockets fired from nearby
Victoria Park. During the war, other authorities had disagreed, the Shoreditch Coroner, Mr W. R. H. Heddy, said that there was "nothing to suggest any stampede or panic or anything of the kind".
Mr Justice Singleton, summarising his decision in ''Baker v Bethnal Green Corporation'', an action for damages by a bereaved widow, said "there was nothing in the way of rushing or surging" on the staircase. The
Master of the Rolls,
Lord Greene, reviewing the lower court's judgment, said "it was perfectly well known ... that there had been no panic". Lord Greene also rebuked the Ministry for requiring the hearing to be held in secret. The Baker lawsuit was followed by other claims, resulting in damages of nearly £60,000, the last of which was made in the early 1950s. The secret official report, by a Metropolitan magistrate,
Laurence Rivers Dunne Sir Laurence Rivers Dunne, MC (4 October 1893 – 30 June 1970) was a British barrister and magistrate who served as Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate The Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, known as Chief Metropolitan Police Magistr ...
, acknowledged that Bethnal Green Council had warned London Civil Defence, in 1941 that the staircase needed a
crush barrier
A safety barrier is a component which prevents passage into a dangerous area, commonly used to mitigate risk. Safety barriers may be hard barriers physically restricting passage or soft barriers that control circuits based on the presence of fore ...
to slow down the crowds but was told that would be a waste of money.
The crush at Bethnal Green is thought to have been the largest single loss of civilian life in the UK in the Second World War and the largest loss of life in an incident on the London Underground network. The largest number killed by a wartime bomb was 107 at Wilkinson's Lemonade Factory in
North Shields
North Shields () is a town in the Borough of North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear, England. It is north-east of Newcastle upon Tyne and borders nearby Wallsend and Tynemouth.
Since 1974, it has been in the North Tyneside borough of Tyne and W ...
(1941), though there were many more British civilians killed in single bombing raids.
Commemoration of wartime disaster
Memorials
A plaque commemorating the 1943 disaster was erected on the station's south-eastern staircase, on which the deaths occurred, for the fiftieth anniversary in 1993. It bears the coat of arms of the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and records the event as the "worst civilian disaster of the Second World War".
The "Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust" was established in 2007 to create a more prominent public memorial to those who died in the disaster. The memorial was designed by local architects Harry Patticas and Jens Borstlemann of Arboreal Architecture.
It was sited in a corner of Bethnal Green Garden, immediately outside the tube station, and was unveiled on 16 December 2017, more than 74 years after the event. It takes the form of an open inverted stairway of 18 steps made of teak overhanging a concrete plinth, and is a full-sized replica of the stairway where the disaster occurred. The names of the dead are carved on the exterior and the top covering has 173 small holes allowing light through representing the dead.
Other commemorations
Although the deaths were not due to enemy action, 164 of the dead are recorded by name by the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...
among civilian war dead in the
Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green, plus seven in the
Metropolitan Borough of Stepney
The Metropolitan Borough of Stepney was a Metropolitan borough in the County of London created in 1900. In 1965 it became part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Formation and boundaries
The borough was formed from thirteen civil parishes ...
. All are recorded as died or injured "in Tube Shelter accident".
In 1975, the
ITV network broadcast a
dramatised television film about the disaster, ''It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow'', directed and produced by
John Goldschmidt, and with a script by
Bernard Kops
Bernard Kops (born 28 November 1926) is a British dramatist, memoirist, poet and novelist.
Early life
Born in the East End of London, the son of Dutch-Jewish immigrants, Kops was evacuated from London in 1939, and recounted that experience in e ...
, who as a 16-year-old had witnessed the event. The film was short-listed for an
International Emmy
The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and Sci ...
in the Fictional Entertainment category, but lost to ''
The Naked Civil Servant''. As part of "TUBE" Art Installation in November 2013, sound artist Kim Zip
created an installation
commemorating the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster. The work was backed by the
Whitechapel Gallery and promoted as part of the organisation's "First Thursdays" initiative for popular art.
"TUBE" exhibited over a period of four weeks in the belfry of
Sir John Soane's
St John on Bethnal Green Church.
St John's overlooks the site of the tragedy and was commandeered as a temporary mortuary on the night of 3 March 1943.
On 1 April 2016, Dr Joan Martin, who was on duty as a junior casualty officer at the nearby
Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children and led the medical team dealing with the dead and wounded from the incident, told
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...
's
Eddie Mair
Eddie Mair (born 12 November 1965) is a Scottish broadcaster who was a presenter on BBC radio and television. He presented his show on LBC between 4pm and 6pm every weekday until his last one, on 18 August 2022, after which he retired from bro ...
about her personal experiences on the evening of the disaster, and its long-term effects on her life.
Services
Central line trains operate from the station.
The typical off-peak service in trains per hour (tph) as of 2018 is:
24tph westbound which consist of:
* 9tph to
Ealing Broadway
Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan.
Ealing was histor ...
* 9tph to
West Ruislip
* 3tph to
Northolt
Northolt is a town in West London, England, spread across both sides of the A40 trunk road. It is west-northwest of Charing Cross and is one of the seven major towns that make up the London Borough of Ealing. It had a population of 30,304 at ...
* 3tph to
White City White City may refer to:
Places Australia
* White City, Perth, an amusement park on the Perth foreshore
* White City railway station, a former railway station
* White City Stadium (Sydney), a tennis centre in Sydney
* White City FC, a football c ...
24tph eastbound which consist of:
* 6tph to
Hainault via Newbury Park
* 3tph to
Newbury Park
* 3tph to
Woodford via Hainault
* 9tph to
Epping
* 3tph to
Loughton
Connections
London Bus
Buses have been used as a mode of public transport in London since 1829, when George Shillibeer started operating a horse-drawn ''omnibus'' service from Paddington to the City of London. In the decades since their introduction, the red London ...
routes
8, 106, 254, 309, 388, D3, D6 and night routes
N8 and
N253 serve the station on Bethnal Green Road, Roman Road and Cambridge Heath Road.
Future development
The Central line runs directly below
Shoreditch High Street railway station
Shoreditch High Street is a London Overground station located on Bethnal Green Road in Shoreditch in East London. It is served by the East London Line between and with services running either to , or , , West Croydon, , and is in Travelcard ...
on the
London Overground East London line and an interchange has been desired locally in neighbouring Shoreditch since it opened in 2010. The station would lie between Bethnal Green and Liverpool Street on one of the longest gaps between tube stations in inner London. Although there would be benefits to this interchange, it was cancelled due to costs, it would cause disruption to the Central line while under construction, and because the platforms would be too close to sidings at Liverpool Street and will not be considered until after
Crossrail
Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway l ...
is fully operational in 2023.
References
Sources
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External links
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*
* Site relating to proposed new memorial. It also lists the victims' names.
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bethnal Green Tube Station
Central line (London Underground) stations
London Underground Night Tube stations
Tube stations in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
London Underground stations located underground
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1946
Tube station
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England.
The Un ...
1943 disasters in the United Kingdom