The Whiteley's bomb - 22nd October 1940

In 1940, Whiteley’s was a large department store, catering for the well-heeled people of west London, located on Queensway, just north of Hyde Park. 

It closed in 1981 and the abandoned building features in this slideshow.  Watch closely, and just after 2 minutes, 35 seconds there is a picture of a sign saying “To the SHELTER”, the only clue to the events of 1940.  (Whiteley’s re-opened in 1989, the façade retained as the impressive shell for a new shopping centre.)

At the start of the Blitz, some people favoured underground stations, others their garden Anderson shelter, and others still took their chances at home.  In the cities, some department stores opened their shelters overnight for local people and Whiteley’s seems to have been one of these, although references to it are rare.

The first major bombing attack on the centre of London was Saturday 7^th September 1940 so by 22^th October people had experienced over 40 days and nights under attack.  For the Bayswater area this was mainly the threat of attack, with bombs mercifully rare, but the broken nights would have been tiring.  While the threat of invasion had seemingly passed for this winter, the war was not going well.

Information on what happened at Whiteley’s after dark on Tuesday 22^nd October is very hard to come by.  The facts seem to be as follows:

• A bomb hit the building at 9.45pm
• It struck the south end of the building at the corner of Queensway and Porchester Gardens (so on the left of the postcard view above)
• It exploded in the basement, causing some internal walls to collapse
• A gas main was ignited, causing a fire
• The ‘all clear’ sounded at 11pm
• It took until daylight for the fire to be adequately controlled to begin rescue work
• It took four days to find the last of the casualties
• A fireman was among those killed

Photographs of the damage are also scarce: this one is said to be of Whiteley’s, showing the ground floor:

Using the Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC) records, 18 people (civilians) were killed or fatally injured at Whiteley’s that night as well as a woman killed in Queensway, giving a total of 19 deaths.

All these people had home addresses in West London, but most had travelled some distance to get to the shelter in the store, passing the potential shelter of London Underground stations on the way.  Of course some people didn’t like the tube, others were too late, but it is possible some were members of staff bringing their families back to shelter.  I have therefore divided the list into people who were local (n=5) and people who had travelled (n=13), plus speculation about the identity of ‘the fireman’.

The ‘travellers’

 May and Joyce Margaret Broom, exemplify the ‘travellers’: they lived at 24 Oxford Gardens which is roughly a mile away and would involve walking past Ladbroke Grove station.  May was 55 and her daughter, Joyce was 15.  May and her husband James are not easy to trace on ancestry.co.uk but the 1911 Census offers a clue:

·         A May Deacon worked as a parlour-maid for the Isaacs family at 79 Portland Place West

·         A James Broom worked as a footman for the Loose family at 10 Cavendish Mews North

The addresses are only a couple of hundred yards apart and it is possible they met each other in the area; they were married in the area four years later.

We can deduce May was born on Friday 15^th May, 1885 in Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex.  James was most likely born in 1886 in Clerkenwell and died in 1928 aged 42, when Joyce was aged three.

Joyce was killed at Whiteley’s and May was injured.  She died ten weeks later on 2^nd January 1941 at Park Prewett Hospital, Sherborne St John, just north of Basingstoke.  While this was a psychiatric hospital, during the war it was in military use and included a specialist plastic surgery unit.  It is possible May was burned in the gas main fire mentioned above.

Henry James Lovelock lived at 21 Cambridge Gardens, very close to the Brooms, and it is tempting to think of Henry and his wife joining them on the journey.  Henry married Elizabeth Sarah Florey on Saturday 6^th September 1913 at St Dionis, Parsons Green; he was 27 and gave his occupation as soldier.  She was 26 and a domestic servant, daughter of a labourer; Henry’s father John (now dead) had been a coachman. 

Henry was known as Harry when he was young and had 4 older brothers and sisters, as well as one younger; he would have needed their support when his mother died when he was 8 followed by his father when he was 13. 

Sadly by 1901 he was listed as a ‘pauper scholar’ at the Cottage Home Schools of the Kensington and Chelsea Union, Fir Tree Road, Ewell, Surrey. 

In the 1911 Census he was a private in the army (2^nd Battalion, Prince of Wales Own Regiment at Barracks in Rawcliffe, East Riding of Yorkshire).

In the First World War he served in the Yorkshire Regiment, then the Machine Gun Corps

They had at least one child, John born in 1923 – he may have died in Lambeth in 1943, aged 19, but this was not as a direct result of bombing.

Elizabeth died in Wood Green in 1959.

Kate Parish, aged 54 and a widow, is difficult to trace.  In CWGC her husband’s initial is given as “E” but there are no matches.  In addition, ancestry suggests she was born around 1881 as opposed to 1886 in CWGC.  She survived the bombing badly injured but on Friday 1^st November, ten days later, she died in St Marys Hospital, by Paddington Station.

Looking west towards Whiteley's southern entrance, February 2014 - Queensway runs from left to right at the traffic lights.

Frederick William and Louisa Ada Paxton were husband and wife, both aged 33.  They lived at 14 Warbeck Road, Hammersmith, in Shepherd’s Bush.  Frederick lived in Earl’s Court when he was young, son of a butcher’s shop manager.  Louisa’s origins are more obscure; her birth certificate gives her surname as Wirth.  They married in 1929; I can’t find evidence they had any children.  In 1940, Frederick was working as a grocery salesman in Selfridge’s.

Yetta Rose was most likely born in Russia around 1888.  She probably married Morris (also a Russian) in 1909; their surname could be an Anglicised version of Rosenfeldt.

By 1911 they lived in London with Morris’s sister, Dora; all three of them worked as tailors.

In 1940, Yetta and Morris lived at 12 Colville Road, in Acton.

Deborah Shapps’ home was at 5 Eardley Crescent, which is by Earls Court Exhibition Centre (west of Earls Court Tube).  However, her life is difficult to follow in the records because of uncertainties about her name: for example, her will gives her name as Deborah (or Debby) Shapps (or Marcus), and there is also a reference to her being called Shappa.

One possibility is that she was born Debbe Shaps in Mile End Old Town in Q3 1911; if so, her mother’s maiden name Schneider.  She may have been the daughter of Maurice Shapps (1887-1935) and the sister of Ralph

In 1935 Deborah shared 5 Eardley Crescent, Marcus’s last address, with 2 others, neither of whom is obviously related.  By 1939 the residents were Deborah and Ralph (although in 1938 she was called Deborah Marcus – this ‘new’ surname was her father’s first name.). She left £917 8/9 to Ralph Shapps, who was described as a draughtsman (in Marcus’s will five years earlier he was a hairdresser.)

Looking north up Queensway, numbers 106-110 where several victims lived is off camera to the right. Previous photo was taken around the corner on the right.

Alice Maud Smith, aged 51, died together with her son Leslie James Smith and his wife Elsie Mabel Smith, aged 24 and 23.  Their home address was 38 St Lawrence Terrace which is by Ladbroke Grove, in the same direction as Oxford Gardens and Cambridge Gardens (see above).

Alice Maud Brown was born Q3 1889 in Islington, daughter of Henry Alfred (‘Harry’, born 1862) and Charlotte Maria Darby.  She married John Smith (1888-1959) on 4^th October 1908 at St Marks, Victoria Park – she was 19, he was 20.  John was a blacksmith, just like his father.  Alice was a tailoress, her father a carman. Their address was given as 13 Wendon Street.

Henry, Alice’s father killed on 24^th September 1916. The cause of death was: “Violent shock, crushed thigh and other injuries caused by the explosion of a bomb thrown by a hostile aircraft [a Zeppelin airship].”

Leslie James Smith may have been born 17^th October 1916; there is a record of a man of the same name working for Great Western Railways from 27^th November 1933.  His birth was registered in Q4 of 1916, the 8^th of 9 children.

Elsie Mabel Wall married Leslie in Kensington in Q4 1939.  She was most likely born in Kensington in Q2 1916 (mother’s maiden name Hastings).

William Matthew Willmott and his wife, Ethel Elizabeth came from 199 Dalling Road, Hammersmith, at Ravenscourt Park to the west of Shepherds Bush – they had travelled the furthest to shelter at Whiteley’s that night.

William was born 4^th August 1866 in Haslingfield, about six miles south of Cambridge, son of an agricultural labourer.  William followed his father into farm work initially but between 1881 and 1894 he seems to have moved to London and started work as a gardener.

Aged 27, he married Sarah Jane Atkins in 1894 at St Saviours in Paddington (she was 36) but she died the following year.  In 1896 William married again, to Mary Ann Mason in Barnet and they had at least four children (Mary, William, Lily and Violet).

Sarah died in 1935 at the Middlesex Hospital Annexe in St Pancras.  Their home address was 90 Lancaster Road, Notting Hill, and the NPC gives William’s occupation as ‘verger’.  (Sarah’s effects were valued at £381.)

In 1939 he married a third time, to Ethel Elizabeth Newell.  She was born 23rd March 1895 in Margate, but her family moved to London when she was young and on 2^nd July 1900 she was registered at Eardley Road School, Mitcham Lane, Streatham.  Her father, Henry, was a gas fitter, and her mother’s name was Elizabeth.  She left school to work as a general domestic servant, and in the 1911 Census she lived at 72 Ladbroke Grove W in the household of Blanche Gertrude Guthrie (widow), her father, his nurse, and her brother.

The ‘locals’

 CWGC gives the information that Norman Alexander Cable-Brackenbury, born around 1912, was adopted by his parents Cyril and Maud Catherine Brackenbury; at the time of the adoption Cyril worked as a mining engineer in Redruth in Cornwall.  (Cyril was a wealthy man – when he died in 1962 his effects were valued at over £40,000).

Norman married Elsie Muriel Twist in the middle of 1940, the couple moved into Elsie’s flat at

2 Porchester Court, 12 Porchester Gardens joins Whiteley’s on its east side.  Elsie had been training at the Royal College of Music; her father was a retired soldier and inspector of munitions at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich.  After the war he would become borough engineer for the Paddington area, overseeing the repair of war damage.

Porchester Gardens looking east, Whiteley's south bay starts where the houses end.  The traffic lights and Boots just visible on the right.  Norman Cable-Brackenbury lived in the house nearest Whiteley's (centre of photo).

Percy Lines is a hard man to trace (his first name is also given as Percie and his surname as Liner, Shines and Lyons – whether by bad luck or design is unknown.).  He was probably born in 1879 in Fulham and lived at 103 Hammersmith Road as a child.  His father was a surveyor or estate agent and his mother seems to have been left to run the household of at least 8 children.  There are no simple matches in the 1901 or 1911 Census returns, nor for his marriage to Rosa; it is possible he was travelling abroad (like his father in earlier Censuses?)

In 1940 he lived at 106a Queensway, diagonally opposite Whiteley’s across the junction with Porchester Gardens.

Ethel Mann lived at the same address as Percy Lines.  She was born in 1888 in St Pancras, daughter of a railway clerk.  In 1891 the family was living in Surrey but ten years later her mother and father were living miles apart, her father working as a fish porter in his native Plymouth; her mother was living with her elder brothers in Tufnell Park.  Ethel lived with her grandmother in Brighton.  Was this a holiday or a permanent state?

Another ten years and she lived with her mother in Clapton, north-east London, working as a shorthand clerk in an accountants.  She seems never to have married.

Serge Tchernine lived at 35 Leinster Square, a couple of hundred yards west of Whiteley’s.

Serge is recorded by CWGC as having been killed in the entrance to Whiteley’s – could he have been caught by the raid on his way home and sheltered in the doorway?

He was born in Brighton in 1901, possibly called Abraham Serge Tchernine, into a family of some wealth.  His father, Dimirti, was a Russian financier and his mother Yvonne was French (from Toulouse).

The 1911 Census records them living at the Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington with his family, plus Yvonne’s mother Bertha and sister Odette (born in Paris).

By 1921, his father was in financial trouble and he died in 1925, in Lambeth, possibly suggesting some reduction in his wealth. 

Unfortunately we know nothing else about Serge.  Yvonne died in Surrey in 1945.

Anna Cecilia Webbe lived at 110 Queensway (today this is the Bella Pasta restaurant across the traffic junction at the south end of Whiteley’s), so she was a near-neighbour of Percy Lines and Ethel Mann (see above).  CWGC only records she died in St Mary’s Hospital on 2th October 1940, two days after the bombing and gives her home address; as there were no other incidents in the area in that time, I have inferred she was injured either in the shelter or from blast damage while at her home.

Anna arrived at Southampton from Capetown, South Africa, on 1^st June 1936 aboard the Stirling Castle (travelling Cabin Class).  She was aged 28 and her occupation was given as ‘hairdresser’.  She gave her address as the Regent Palace Hotel, just by Piccadilly Circus, and her intended residence was recorded as “other parts of the British Empire”, which presumably means she was leaving South Africa for London.

One possibility is that she was born Anna Cecilia Pretorius (her mother’s surname) and married a man called Webbe (this is her surname in ancestry.co.uk records, not Webb as in CWGC) but nobody of the same name travelled with her.  Another possibility is that she was born Webb and her mother had re-married.

Looking south down Queensway, the pillar of Whiteley's southern entrance just visible on the right.  Percy Lines, Ethel Mann and Anna Webbe lived diagonally across the junction from Whiteley's, above the shops and pub in the centre of the photo on the other side of the street.

And ‘the fireman’?

The source quoted at the start of this post said a fireman was among the dead, yet none are listed in CWGC.  There was only one civil defence official killed, so could this be a case of mistaken identity?

  

James Scott is the most mysterious figure among the casualties.  CWGC gives his home address as the Salvation Army Hostel at Lisson Grove, and says he was a merchant seaman, aged 39.  He is also described as a ‘shelter marshal’, a civil defence official managing a shelter.

The Salvation Army Shelter was an incident reporting post for the whole St Marylebone area and was an obvious base to send help to the neighbouring area of Paddington when the Whiteley’s incident occurred. 

I speculate James might have led the team from St Marylebone going to help; there seems no other likely reason why a shelter marshal should have been so far from his own ‘patch’.  We know there was a gas explosion, so it is possible James was killed while working in the rubble to rescue survivors of the bombing.

Sadly, with no information about relations or a middle name on CWGC there are few ways to search ancestry.co.uk with any certainty at all.

The "Madame Tussaud's Bomb" - night of 8th-9th September 1940

The large-scale bombing of London began on the afternoon of Saturday 7^th September 1940, but the west end of central London was relatively unaffected.  On the Sunday night / Monday morning, an incident happened that is best known because it damaged Madame Tussaud’s, the world-famous waxworks museum.

The incident is covered by the ‘West End at War’ website, and I recommend you read the webpage, including a map and pictures, first.

This states that the explosion happened at 04.20 on Monday 9^th, and the location is given as the junction of Marylebone Road, Allsop Place and Chiltern Street.  This photo from the excellent ‘Britain from Above’ website shows the scene in 1931:

Photo 1 – the plane would have been flying approximately over Oxford Street looking north.  Regents Park is in the top right-hand corner. The crossroads in the centre of the photo is the junction of Marylebone Road (running left to right) and Baker Street (running up to down).  The large building above the junction and to the right is Chiltern Court above Baker Street Underground Station.  The next building to the right is Madame Tussaud’s.  The road in between them is Allsop Place.  Facing Tussaud’s across the Marylebone Road is the Marylebone Institution; it is bordered on the left (west) by Chiltern Street and on the right (east) by Luxborough Street.

Such contemporary news coverage as there was seems to have focused on whether the waxwork of Hitler was damaged; strangely there seem to be no photographs of the Marylebone Road frontage of Madame Tussaud’s that a visitor would see today.  However, we do know what the building would have looked like:

Photo 2 shows a sketch of the buildings pre-1940 and is helpful in showing the cinema, on the left, the restaurant in the centre and the exhibition on the right.  

  

Photo 3 shows the building, Allsop Place on the left, the Marylebone Institution out-of-camera on the right.

Photos 4 and 5 show comparable views from the 1970s and modern day; the London Planetarium is on the site of the cinema.

  

Photo 6 shows the Marylebone Institution front to Marylebone Road, the only view I can find, as it neared completion in 1900.  Madame Tussaud’s would be directly opposite to the right, Luxborough Street is on the left edge of the photo:

The modern equivalent is the rather bland modern Westminster University building which can be seen by clicking here.

Photographs 7 and 8 are from shortly after the bombing in Allsop Place, looking towards Marylebone Road.  Photo 7 was probably the morning of Monday 9^th given the very evident rescue efforts, the shadow of the sun on the building, and the crowd of onlookers just visible across the Marylebone Road

The wrecked building on the left is Tussaud’s cinema – close inspection of photos 2 and 3 shows identical wall decorations on the corner of the building.  The crater where the bomb fell is barely visible but is just behind the group of rescue workers in the foreground.

Directly across at the T-junction is the Marylebone Institute.  There seems to be a crowd of onlookers across the road in front of the Institute, a phenomenon that ended rapidly as bombings became commonplace.  Note buildings are visible through the windows of the Institution, showing (unsurprisingly) that the glass had been blown out.  Chiltern Court is out-of-camera on the right.

This is roughly the same view today.

Photo 8 is from John Neville’s book “The Blitz: London Then and Now” (page 57) and was taken from slightly further back up Allsop Place then photo 7.  

While it shows the rubble of the cinema, it also shows the next building in Allsop Place, which was the focus of attention for the rescue workers in Photo 7 but out-of-camera to the left.  The pace of the rescue effort seems to have slackened

Ten days on, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the parents of the present Queen) visited the site, seen in photos 9 and 10.  In photo 9, they are standing in Allsop Place on the edge of the crater, now clearly evident compared with Photo 7.  The King is in military uniform listening to the man pointing towards the windows of Chiltern Court, out-of-camera to the right.  The Queen stands alone, in silent contemplation of the crater, possibly thinking of the bomb that fell on Buckingham Palace on the 13^th. In the background the glassless windows of the Institution look on.

Photo 10 shows a near-identical view but with the photographer having moved round to the right of the previous photo.  The King is on the right; a man is walking to stand by the Queen’s shoulder.

Accounts of the incident

I am not aware of any eyewitness accounts to this incident.  However, in his book, “Diary of the War Years and One Year After” Anthony Weymouth describes the night of the 8^th and 9^th from Harley House, which was about 200 metres to the east of Madame Tussaud’s along Marylebone Road.

“Another night which, in its frightfulness of waiting and anticipation, surpassed anything which Edgar Allan Poe or the author of Dracula could have conceived.  The sirens sounded as darkness fell. Then the horrible intermittent droning of the German planes began. They came nearer, overhead, faded into the distance. But not always.  Now and then the crash of a bomb, preceded by the loathsome whistle as the hundreds of pounds of dynamite falls from the sky, shakes the building.”

At midnight the family gave up the attempt to sleep and got up to make tea.

“I was standing by the window.  It was four o’clock. Suddenly – a crash such as I have never before heard. Not in the last war, not in any thunder-storm. Could there be so much noise collected together in a few seconds?  The asbestos shutter fitted to the window was blown in like paper.  The splines which should have held it in place had splintered like matchwood.  The shutter itself lay in two pieces on the floor … Our ears opened and closed: our heads seemed to swim … An hour of small talk. More tea. Then a sudden noise – the first welcome sound throughout that grim night. The All Clear.”

His entry for Tuesday 10^th September records more information:

“Marylebone Road is roped off to the west of Harley House.  Madame Tussaud’s, which is some hundred yards to the west, is in ruins.  Chiltern Court – a high block of flats built over Baker Street Station and adjacent to the waxworks – is still standing, but with almost every window broken, and its walls pitted by the debris flung against them. Of the Tussaud cinema itself, nothing remains but an outer wall and part of the stage. So violent was the explosion that, I am told, the rows of tip-up seats were blown out of the auditorium and clean over the top of the station …

… it was this bomb that had blown in our window on Monday night.  I can speak only of what I saw – the wreck of the cinema, windows broken on both sides of Marylebone Road, the glass roof of Baker Street Station shattered, but one of the glass faces of the clock still intact. In Baker Street itself, they tell us, the blast had destroyed shop windows and thrown the contents of the shops into the road – women’s clothes, boxes of chocolate and whatever wares the tradesmen were displaying.”

The casualties

The loss of the cinema and damage to waxworks was the focus of media coverage but it was far from the whole story.  We have already seen a hint of the human cost from the urgent rescue work in photo 7 and we can pick up threads of the story from the contemporary message forms sent between civil defence staff on the ground and their control rooms, reproduced on the ‘West End at War’ webpage:

•             The first form says that the incident was at Madame Tussaud’s and calls for a stretcher party. 
•            The second form gives the location as Madame Tussaud’s and Chiltern Court, which is the building above Baker Street Underground Station and between the station and today’s Planetarium building.  It also says Allsop Place was blocked, that people were trapped under rubble and that there was a fire.
•            The third form says there were casualties at the Luxborough Street entrance to the Marylebone Institution, caused by blast and broken glass.

In addition the second message form mentions 40 casualties (although this number is scored through); these would have been treated or evacuated to surrounding hospitals. 
In "The Emergency medical Services" Volume 2, Dunn reports "a large number of injuries from flying lass and falling debris amongst the inmates of the St Marylebone Institution opposite."  This fits well with the windowless state of the buildings in photos 7 and 9 above.  Dunn continues: "A [first aid] unit from Berkeley Court was sent and set up in the Institution premises."  This could refer to the Luxborough Street entrance referred to in the third message above.  Dunn concludes: "Thirty-one casualties were attended, some being sent on to hospital.  They were all old men who had been in bed when the bomb fell and the work done was particularly valuable as it saved them the journey to a [fixed site] first aid post which, in their shocked condition, was best avoided. A second unit from Health Centre No. 2 was set up in the entrance of Madame Tussaud's building, but dealt with only three patients."


Scrutiny of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission list of civilian war dead shows within 48 hours four of the injured had died.  In all one person died at Allsop Place, one was fatally injured at Chiltern Court, while at the Marylebone Institution one died and three were fatally injured.

One death at Allsop Place

Muriel Margaret Caton-Woodville was aged 41, and died at 18 Allsop Place, possibly the wrecked building in Photo 8.

She was born Muriel Margaret Sterling in 1898 or 1899 in Glasgow, daughter of Clara and John, both English.  Two elder brothers, Robert and John, were also born in Glasgow suggesting her parents had been resident here since at least 1894. 

Her father worked for JH Young & Co, muslin manufacturers, with offices at 216 Bothwell Street and a factory at 53 Mill Street, Greenhead, both in Glasgow.  (Mr Young rented the mansion in Ruchill that was later bought by the City to form Ruchill Park.) 

They seem to have been affluent: their address - 30 Ashton Gardens – was in Hillhead, next to the University and at the 1901 Census they had three servants living with them, a cook, nurse and housemaid. (A photo of the street is here, number 30 would have been at far end on the right, approximately the entrance to the modern Medical School.)

Muriel attended Laurel Bank School in Great George Street, and went on to study painting and design at the Glasgow School of Art, finishing her studies in Paris.  Around this time she had her portrait painted by John Bell Anderson:

She worked in stage design in the theatre, where she was one of the first women to be employed in this role, notably by the Birmingham Repertory Company in London, as well as at the Malvern Festival. (The following link to programmes crediting her work: 1 2 3 4 5 see page 238).

In 1929, she was a resident at 19a Marylebone Road (with a number of other single women), which was the address of the Three Arts Club, first established in America to offer support and temporary residence for women painters, actors and musicians (more information here and here).  Could she be somewhere in this video?  It is of a Ball held by the Club in the same year.

In 1935 she married Anthony Caton-Woodville (1878-1957) in Marylebone.  He came from a colourful family and had been married before to an actress, Dora Brockbank (stage name Dora Barton) from 1908-1933 approx.  They most likely met while appearing in the same plays.  The electoral roll shows them to be registered at the same address in 1932 but not in 1934.  Anthony was also registered at a second London address in the late 1920s but whether this was a second home or a work address is unclear.  They had one child – Humphrey – born in 1914. A photo of Anthony and his first wife, Dora, can be ordered here.

While he is described at the time of Muriel’s death as a ‘painter artist’, the only example of his work I can find is a book of caricatures of theatrical scenes.  He also seems to have worked as an actor and a photographer. It may be that he worked with Muriel on set design.

In 1940 Muriel and Anthony lived at 18 Allsop Place, in between Chiltern Court and Madame Tussaud’s.  Muriel was a full-time driver in the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service.  The full-scale Blitz on London had started on Saturday afternoon and it’s possible she had been called on duty on Saturday night and Sunday. By the early hours of Monday morning she was presumably off duty. 

Muriel died in the rubble of her home; Anthony and her mother Clara, were both seriously injured but survived.

The National Probate Calendar names her husband, her solicitor and Agnes Annabel Kidston; her affects were valued at £1,228. (The NPC says she was also known as Muriel Sterling, her single name).

Agnes Annabel Kidston can be traced: she was born in Glasgow in 1896 and died in North Berwick in 1981, raising the possibility she was a childhood friend.  Annabel was an artist (see pages 6-8 of this document).  Agnes spent her childhood in Glasgow and in 1901 lived at Fernacoile, New Kilpatrick (today’s Bearsden): Muriel might have known her from the Glasgow School of Art or even from school.

Anthony married for a third time to Grace Hammond (1894-1959) in 1946.

For an appreciation of Muriel’s life see The Glasgow Herald from three months after her death.

One fatal injury at Chiltern Court

Chiltern Court opened in 1929 as a block of luxury apartments:

In the war it may have been commandeered (in part?) by Special Operations Executive (mission: reconnaissance and espionage in occupied Europe).  However, contrary to some reports it was not their HQ; this was at 64 Baker Street and they did not move there until October 1940.

The main who died at Chiltern Court was a Polish Citizen, Eliasz Hermann Ronies.  He was born in 1879 in Lviv (Lvov), now in the very west of Ukraine.  He was married to Gelda.  It is unclear when they arrived in London or what happened to Gelda after Eliasz’s death.

Eliasz was injured at Chiltern Court and was taken to the Middlesex Hospital; he died there on Tuesday 10^th September 1940 and is buried in West Ham Jewish Cemetery:

Four fatal injuries at Marylebone Institution

While there had been a workhouse on the site since 1776, this was initially towards Paddington Street and it was only in 1901 that the north front went right the way up to Marylebone Road, opposite Madame Tussaud’s and Allsop Place.

When the bomb exploded in the early hours of the 9^th, four men were fatally injured.  The first to die was Albert Smith, aged 50, resident at the Institution.  He died at 1 Luxborough Street which would be at the north-east corner of the Institution site.  (This fits with the third message reproduced on the West End at War website, referring to casualties at the Luxborough Street entrance.)  Albert is very difficult to trace through the records as he has no middle name, wife, or parents and was resident in the Institution.

The second man to die was Arthur George Dyer, aged 77; he died in the same hospital and the same day as Eliasz Ronies from Chiltern Court (the Middlesex on the 10^th).  The first third of his life can be tracked: he was born in the Isle of Wight in 1863, son of an ostler, and one of at least seven children.  Aged 18 he was living with the family at Newport on the Isle of Wight, working as a draper’s assistant.  In 1883 he married Agnes Bowman on 21^st December but his story than disappears from view.

The next to die was William Potts, 76, at the Middlesex Hospital one week later on 17^th September.  Nothing else is known about him.

The last victim of the Madame Tussaud’s bomb was also the oldest, Frederick Brandon aged 80. He survived for 17 days before he succumbed at St Bernard’s Emergency Hospital in Southall (it is likely he would have been cared at a near-by hospital such as the Middlesex initially, but then transferred to a ‘sector hospital’ to free up much-needed beds in the central London hospitals once he had been stabilised.

Frederick Brandon was born in St Albans in Hertfordshire, son of Jonathan (a bricklayer’s labourer) and Elizabeth (a hatmaker).  By 1871 they had moved to Kentish Town in London and his father worked as a porter and labourer and his two elder brothers did the same jobs.  By 1881 the street they were living in was described as “impoverished” and the men of the family were working as coal porters.  He married Lucy, a domestic servant, in 1883, but by 1891 they were still childless.  They lived in Wood Green by 1901 and Fredrick, the 11-year old son of one of Lucy’s siblings was living with them.  At the 1911 Census the family lived in Frederick’s old family home, both Fredrick senior and junior were general labourers.  Lucy died in 1925, but Frederick senior was still at the same address in 1939, aged 79.  We do not know why he was in the Institution in 1940, but it’s possible he became ill, or just couldn’t earn enough.

Paddington Station 16th April 1941

The night of Wednesday 16^th April 1941 saw an especially heavy raid on London, all the more shocking for the comparative calm of the last few months.  During the raid, a mine (a powerful explosive suspended on a parachute) landed on buildings on the south-west side of Paddington Station, closest to Eastbourne Terrace. 

I have found one report of what happened, in Tim Bryan’s book, “The Great Western at War 1939-1945”:

“[I]n the early hours of 17^th April … a landmine exploded in the departure roadway, close to the station manager’s office … causing extensive damage. The Company board room and part of the general offices were demolished and severe damage was also sustained by the waiting room on Platform 1, which unfortunately was kept open at night. A number of passengers were trapped beneath the rubble and debris from the blast, and despite the actions of the rescue services a number were killed.  In total, 18 people were killed including six members of staff, and a further 97 were injured.

Almost the whole of the side of the station adjacent to Platform 1 was affected by the blast and in reporting the incident to the board, the General Manager listed a number of other offices and premises on the station that were damaged or destroyed in the raid. This list included property occupied by Boot’s the Chemist, Lyons and Wyman’s, as well as Company offices for season tickets, urgent parcels and passenger enquiries. The No. 2 booking office was also wrecked, as was one of the station’s buffets.  When the landmine exploded at 2.46am, as ARP and first aid parties went to the scene, other Company staff immediately began the task of clearance and demolition work.  With so many casualties, Paddington Borough Council sent additional rescue parties to assist in the removal of the injured from the rubble of the waiting room; further help was given by a detachment of Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps.

Clearing up operations proceeded at high speed, allowing the work of the station to proceed remarkably well … on Friday [the 18^th] the main booking office had received enough repairs to allow operations to restart there.  Such was the destruction that for the following four days No.1 platform road was taken out of use, and used to stable wagons into which debris and rubble could be loaded directly.”

Photo 1 - looking north up the side of the station along the departure road.  The gap in the buildings on the right and the pile of rubble mark the site of the explosion.  The people injured in Eastbourne Terrace would have been in the houses on the left; the street entrance is Chilworth Street.

Photo 2 - from the street level, above Photo 1 and to the left but otherwise in the same direction.  The scale of the destruction is now more apparent.

Photo 3 - taken in 2011, this shows the gap left in the buildings

Photo 4 - a screen capture showing the area on bombsite.org.  The red circle with the white parachute in the centre of the screen marks the site.

In modern terms this is where the Crossrail works are taking place, with Eastbourne Terrace entirely closed off.  Up until 2011 this was where you would have got in a taxi.  From within the station it is halfway up Platform 1, under the prominent clock facing onto Platform 1, where there is a statue to Brunel.  (This entrance is known as The Clock Arch to distinguish it from The Horse Arch which is next to Sainsbury’s – both closed at present due to building work).

Photo 5 - a modern view of Platform 1 on the left of the concourse as you look towards the trains.  The clock is on the left of the picture, just beyond the Macdonalds sign

In the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) list of civilian war dead sixteen people (civilians) died or were fatally injured, thirteen in the station and three in the houses opposite on Eastbourne Terrace.  Bryan says 18 people died and as a mainline station it is very possible some servicemen or women were also killed as they passed through which could explain the difference in numbers.

Bryan also refers to passengers being the victims but scrutiny of the people listed by CWGC tells a different story because 6 of the 13 people who died at the station had home addresses within a mile of the station (some much closer) and it seems likely some of the rooms were being used as a shelter during the raid, possibly for people who felt unsafe in their own homes.  (The underground, a shelter option in other parts of London, was useless here: the line at the station on Praed Street is only just below street level and many people had been killed here six months earlier (on 13^th October 1940).

The six locals were:

William Monteith Brown, a single man aged 25 from 163 Sussex Gardens.  He was the son of William Young Brown, a foy boatman from South Shields, and Sarah Maria, who lived in New Barnet.

George Clayden, aged 65, from 14 Formosa Street, Maida Vale (the other side of the modern Westway).  He had married Emily Hawkins on Christmas Day 1897 at St John the Evangelist Church in Kensal Green.  They had at least three children, at least one of whom died as an infant.  George was a ‘provisions warehouseman’ on his marriage certificate and in the 1901 and 1911 Census returns so it is possible (speculation) he could have been working at the goods depot at the station in 1941.

Kathleen Margot Dawe, 29, living at 14 London Street.  Born in Croydon the youngest of four childen, her father was a civil servant working for His Majesty’s Stationery Office.  Her mother, Edith Madeleine Taplay was the daughter of a confectioner, but died at the age of 43 when Kathleen was five.  Her father remarried eight years later.

Robert Heller, from 158 Westbourne Terrace.  Robert’s father was a Dutchman Hans Heller, and Robert’s wife was called Malvine (possibly Lustig or Lull), and does not appear in UK birth records.  He thus seems to have spent at least the early part of his life in Europe, most likely the Netherlands, although CWGC does not list him as a Dutch citizen.  Marvine continued to live in London after the war, working as a dressmaker.

Herbert Hindes and Ivy Doris Hindes, from 155 Praed Street.  Herbert was born in 1902, son of a builder’s labourer, living at 8 Kingsgate Road in Kilburn.  He married Emily Amelia Poole in 1923 and two years later their only child, Ivy Doris, was born.  They were not a wealthy family, Herbert left Emily effects worth £170.  Father and daughter died together, strengthening the impression local families were using the station buildings as an ad hoc air raid shelter.

Photo 6 - an aerial view of the site, the grey roof of the station in the centre; Eastbourne Terrace runs along the left hand side from top to bottom of the screen with orange machinery in place for the Cross rail works.  Just under halfway up the side of the station is a gap in the buildings fronting to the street, and this was the site of the explosion.  Praed Street runs left to right at the bottom of the picture; the impressive white building at the Praed Street entrance to the station is the Hilton Hotel.

Seven people who died at the station came from further afield

Evelyn Elsie Bishop was aged 20 and lived in Wraysbury, then in Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire, just west of Staines and the M25) with her mother, Evelyn.  (Her Father William John was still alive but is not mentioned by CWGC.)  Born in 1920, she had married in the closing months of 1940.  Her husband, Ernest Thomas George Bishop (1921-1991), was serving in the RAF.

Francis Connolly, known as Frank was an Irishman having been born in Cavan in 1883.  In 1911 he was a lodger at 847 Govan Road, Glasgow, working as an assistant in a spirit shop (presumably alcoholic spirits).  At some point he married Anne (born 1900 in Edinburgh, and 17 years his junior) and they had two children.  In 1941 they were quite poor, Frank’s effects being valued at £145.  They lived at 15 Cornwall Street in Lambeth.

Frederick James Mitchell, lived at 28a Willow Road, South Ealing, with his wife Mary Elizabeth Louisa (4/7/1905-1986); I can’t find any evidence they had children.  Frederick was born in 1902 the son of James, a railway carman, and Sarah; as we know six railway staff died in the 1941 bombing this makes him a good candidate to have followed in his father’s work.  His effects were valued at £198.

Joseph Alexander Peddle was one of two teenagers to die in the explosion.  He was born in 1923, and his father, also Joseph, was a builder’s labourer.  His mother’s name is unclear but her maiden surname could have been either Todman or Trotman.  By 1941 he was living at 9 Sefton Avenue, Harrow Weald, with his father.  He was a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service.

Ernest Seeney was aged 49 and lived at 11 Albion Road in Dagenham in 1941, but beyond this very little is known about him.  He may have been born in Stratford in east London in 1892.  In 1901 he may have been living in the Northamptonshire countryside and in 1911 he may have been a butcher’s roundsman living at 16 Seven Sisters Road in Islington.

Arthur John Taylor was a GWR policeman, presumably the forerunner of the British Transport police.  He was born in Uxbridge on 26^th June 1912 in Uxbridge, son of Edgar Harry (1879-1949) and Fanny (nee Russ, 1878-1958), the third of four children. His father was a carriage washer in 1899 on his marriage certificate, but by1905 he was a cloakroom porter.

One note on ancestry.co.uk says, “We believe he had red hair and by all accounts was a very pleasant and charming young man. “  Arthur was known as Jack and married Phyllis Elizabeth Williams in 1939 in Uxbridge; in 1941 they lived 22 Barnhill Road, Yeading Lane, Hayes.

A contributor to ancestry.co.uk also says Jack fathered a child in 1933 with Emma Hilda Trafford (born 1914).

Another contributor wrote, “I am fairly certain that I saw a TV programme quite a while back that recalled the incident of Arthur John returning to his office on Paddington station to get some papers. He need not have done this and lost his life because of it. He should have gone to the air raid shelter.” (http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/tree/23650712/person/1412411855/comments?pg=32768&pgpl=pid)

Frederick Charles Willoughby was 50 when he died and lived in Feltham in Middlesex. He was born in Camberley, son of Charles and Emma (nee Froom). His father was a servant at the Royal Military College, Camberley.  In 1911 Fred was an assistant postman in Camberley.  Little is known of him after that.  At some point he married a woman whose first name began with an E.

Photo 7 - a view of the station in the 1920s looking towards the east.  In the bottom left corner, a puff of white smoke from a steam train entering the station can be seen.  The station itself is the large building running left to right in the middle of the picture, just below the centre.  The street in front of the station is we look is Eastbourne Terrace .

Photo 8 - in a view similar to Photo 7, we see the view in 1947, two years after the end of the war.  The gap in the station buildings onto Eastbourne Terrace is evident.

In the street outside the station, one person died and two were fatally injured:

At number 34, Marjorie Elsie Warwood was killed.  She was born in the early months of 1915 in Alcester, Warwickshire; she had one elder brother.  She lived with her parents Frederick Arthur (1880-1969, a firewood manufacturer) and Effie May (nee Laight) at 10 Chilworth Street, a few yards from where she died. She was an Air Raid Warden.

At number 39, Joan Katherine Belcher was injured; she died later that day at St Mary’s Hospital, just the other side of the station.  She was the youngest victim, just seven years old.  Her parents were William John (1889-?) and Florence Lilian (nee Leney, 1890-1963).  Having married in 1910, her parents were 45 and 44 when she was born; they can hardly have expected to out-live her.

Probably at number 33, Conrad Mackay was injured and died at St Mary’s Hospital three days later, on Sunday 20^th.  Very little is known about him apart from his age, 22, suggesting he was born in 1919.  One possibility is that he was born in Cambridge, son of a woman whose maiden name was Rooks.

Photo 9 - a view from the hotel across the station roof to the gap in the buildings

Photo 10 - 2014 and a view of the Cross rail works and the gap site

The only other account I have found is in a book called “Waiting for the All Clear” by Ben Wicks.  A first aid worker called Tom Bard recalled: “A bomb dropped on Paddington Station and trapped a man behind a huge pile of debris.  A small opening was formed  - it could not be too large because of the danger of collapse – and the man was told to lie down, put his arms through the opening and be dragged through.

He was told to be perfectly still while this was being done because of the debris, but ignored the warning and twisted from side to side. Just as he came through the opening he continued twisting and drove a nail through the side of his head and died on the way to hospital.” (page 79)