BETHNAL GREEN STATION
Bethnal Green Station was the scene of the worst civilian disaster of the Second World War as well as being the largest loss of life in a single incident on the London Under-ground. The station is on the Central Line between Liverpool Street and Mile End Stations. It was part of the ‘New Works Programme 1935-1940’ to coordinate underground trains, tram, trolleybus and bus services in the capital and surrounding areas and was used as an air-raid shelter during the war.
From the nineteenth century Bethnal Green had a reputation for being a working-class area, suffering the deprivations of poor housing and unsanitary conditions which made it one of the poorest slums in London. In October 1863 The Illustrated London News reported on the ‘condition of the poorer neighbourhoods of Bethnal Green’ and drew attention to deaths caused by blood poisoning, ‘through the impure state of the dwellings’. It added that a ‘wide and populous district has for years been subject to all the foulest influences which accompany a state of extreme filth and squalor which may be due to the fact that private moneyed interests have had little to fear from parochial authority.’
The East End of London had experienced heavy bombing raids during the war but, on 3 March 1943, 173 people (twenty-seven men, eighty-four women and sixty-two children) were killed and ninety-two were injured in a crush whilst attempting to enter the station. Two days before British bombing raids on Berlin had brought some optimism on the part of those on the receiving end of the Luftwaffe’s attentions but it also brought an expectation of retaliation. As the siren sounded at 8.17 p.m., hundreds of people ran from the darkened streets to Bethnal Green Tube Station where some 500 people were already sheltering. Within minutes 1,500 people had entered the shelter. Ten minutes later loud noises outside panicked many who were entering the station and there was pushing, shoving and then a surge forward. Adding to the panic was the narrow entrance to the station, a dimly lit staircase and wetness caused by rain during the day. As a woman near the bottom of the staircase slipped, others fell over and within seconds over 300 men, women and children were crushed into the tiny stairwell. People were terrified and panicking as they fell over with many more trying to push their way into the shelter. The rescuers found it almost impossible to help. Eyewitness accounts described the awful ‘screaming and hollering’ as people were ‘piled up like sardines.’
Questions have always surrounded the tragedy. The incident was not reported at the time because of government censorship, which omitted the precise location, and so the disaster did not attract great public sympathy for the victims and survivors. It seemed that all traces of the event had been covered over, which in turn led to rumour and speculation. It was not until 1946 that a report was finally released and the verdict was that the tragedy had been caused by panic made worse by the narrow entrance to the shelter, poor lighting and lack of supervision by ARP wardens. But what caused the panic? People were familiar with the sound of bombing, guns and the drone of aircraft. Why should 3 March have been any different? Despite the noise heard inside the shelter no German planes had been seen that night and there was no evidence of any bombs being dropped. Here was a community that had suffered for eighteen months the worst of the Blitz but as many people ran towards the shelter they recalled seeing a searchlight lighting up the sky and then hearing a huge explosion – such that they had never heard before. Many screamed and threw themselves to the ground.
What they actually heard was the salvo of rockets fired a quarter of a mile away at Victoria Park by an experimental new weapon. The local population had not been informed because of security regulations – a fact that some ex-veterans find hard to believe. Eyewitnesses described the sky being lit up and the sound being terrifying. The Ministry of Defence confirmed that rockets were fired in Victoria Park but rejected the view that this caused the disaster. They claimed that the crush in the station was the result of sirens signalling a Luftwaffe attack. However, no one claimed they had heard any planes.
The steps of Bethnal Green Station with the commemoration plaque above the entrance.
Bethnal Green Station memorial plaque.
Coping with the crushed bodies was a truly dreadful and traumatic experience. Many babies and children that were brought out had turned blue. They were taken to the mortuary at Whitechapel on carts and buses. In nearly all cases death was due to asphyxiation with virtually all dying within ten to fifteen seconds of being crushed. Above the station is a small commemorative plaque, which was placed there in 1993 to the victims of the disaster although there is general feeling that it is inadequate and moves are afoot to erect a more befitting monument.
Years after the disaster there were reports of noises similar to those of women and children screaming. Our knowledge of strange incidents, whether they are related to Underground stations or buildings such as houses or churches, clearly depends on the extent to which they are reported or told to another party and we have to assume that many cases do not get reported. People tend to be reluctant in offering their stories for fear of what others might think or they try to rationalise their experience by looking for explanations such as the mind playing tricks or their imagination getting the better of them. In 1981 a station foreman was working late at Bethnal Green Station. He had seen to the usual tasks of securing the station and doing the paperwork when he heard the low sound of voices. As he stopped what he was doing the sound became more and more distinctive. It was the noise of children crying but it gradually grew louder and was then joined by the sound of women screaming. This went on for some ten to fifteen minutes until, overcome with fear, he left his office.
The sounds might be explained by the cacophony of noises often produced by the Underground such as the wind, motors or, if one is nearer the surface, the voices of people outside which can create distortion. However, to hear the sounds for over ten minutes and be able to describe them as the screams of women and children does raise doubts about these rational explanations, especially when the man, who had worked for many years on the Underground, was more than familiar with the sounds of the station.
The former site of the British Museum Station, now the Nationwide Building Society, High Holborn.
BRITISH MUSEUM
A station with such an evocative name as ‘British Museum’ just had to be haunted especially by an Egyptian looking for a mummy. The station was located on Bury Place near to the museum and was opened in July 1900 by the Central London Railway and serviced what came to be known as the Central Line. With the opening of Holborn Station by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway in 1906 less than 100yds away, and then the amalgamation of the lines under single management in 1933, it was decided to combine the stations. During the Second World War the platforms were bricked up to protect those sheltering from passing trains, though it would appear these walls were later removed. British Museum Station was used as a military administrative office and emergency command post up to the 1960s but it is now a disused station and cannot be accessed from the surface. In 1989 redevelopment of the area saw the demolition of the station at street level.
Before the closure of British Museum a rumour was circulated that the ghost of an Ancient Egyptian haunted the station dressed in a loincloth and headdress. He would emerge late at night and walk along the disused platform wailing as he went. It was said he was in search of a mummy, possibly a lost princess. As the story grew it caught the attention of a national newspaper who tried to keep the speculation and the interest going by offering a cash reward for anyone who would dare spend a night in the station. No doubt most people thought the story was a bit of fun but no one came forward to take up the challenge. Nonetheless the story did not end there.
This ghost story was related to the curse of Amen-Ra’s tomb. The story involved the eerie goings-on with a mummy and the museum some fifty years earlier. The British Museum, which was established in 1753, houses the world’s largest collection of Egyptian antiquities outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. They
have formed part of the museum’s collection since its foundation. Further antiquities from excavations came to the museum in the late nineteenth century and by 1924 the collection stood at 57,000 objects (that figure has since doubled). The story revolves around an exhibit still in the museum, a sarcophagus, or more appropriately the lid, the curse of the Egyptian Princess of Amen-Ra and for the stuff of a very imaginative conspiracy theory, the sinking of the Titanic. The story has been told with many variations as well as denials.
The coffin of the Egyptian Princess, who died in 1,050 BC, arrived at the British Museum in 1889. The label reads ‘Painted wooden mummy-board of an unidentified woman.’ As the Titanic crossed the Atlantic in April 1912 the English journalist William T. Stead (well known for exposing child abuse in the 1880s in the Pall Mall Gazette) told a ghost story about an Egyptian mummy and the translation of an inscription on the mummy’s case. The inscription warned that anyone reciting it would meet a violent death. Worse still the mummy was on the Titanic! The story went that seven of the eight men who heard the story and Stead himself went down with the ship. The mummy in question was the remains of the Princess Amen-Ra, known as the ‘Unlucky Mummy’ because of the disasters associated with it. Amen-Ra, so the story goes, was donated to the British Museum (the British Museum claim that they only ever had the coffin lid, not the mummy). The arrival started a series of accidents involving workmen unloading the coffin – one broke his leg and another died shortly after despite his good health. Even when the princess was installed the trouble continued with reports by watchmen hearing the sounds of knocking and sobbing coming from the coffin. Watchmen began to leave their jobs and one died on duty. Soon the papers were on to the story. One photographer took a picture of the mummy case and when the photograph was developed the painting on the coffin was of a horrifying, human face.
Eventually the mummy was sold to an American archaeologist who arranged for its removal to New York. In April 1912, the new owner escorted its treasure aboard the Titanic. The story has been embellished in its telling but was it really nothing more than an elaborate ghost story created by Stead and his friend Douglas Murray? They sold the story to the press who were not particularly bothered about whether it was true or not – it was a good tale and they published it. The Washington Post (17 August 1980) even made reference to it years later when attempts were being made to salvage remains of the Titanic which were thwarted by storms and bad weather: ‘Some hunters have spoken darkly of the famous mummy that was allegedly on board, saying it transferred the curse of all who disturbed its grave to the vessel’s maiden voyage and to all search efforts,’ reported the Post.
The so called ‘curse of Tutankhamen’ had for many years provided the press with stories of untimely deaths after the discovery of the tomb by Howard Carter in 1922. Films at the time such as The Mummy (1932) and The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) all added to the fascination. The British Museum Underground Station ghost in search of a mummy proved to be an irresistible story not only for the press but also for film and literature. Writing in British Horror Cinema (2001 ed. S. Chibnall), Marcelle Perks comments that the film Bulldog Jack spoofed 1933 press reports that the British Museum Station was haunted by an Egyptian ghost (some discrepancy in dating here as Bulldog Jack was not released until 1935).
The film was a comedy thriller starring Ralph Richardson, Fay Wray and Jack Hulbert. The plot revolves around Bulldog Drummond who is injured when his sabotaged car crashes and Jack Pennington (Jack Hulbert) agrees to masquerade as Drummond. He is enlisted to help Ann Manders (Fay Wray) find her grandfather who has been kidnapped by a gang of crooks who want him to copy a valuable necklace they plan to steal. The plan goes wrong in the British Museum and the film climaxes in an exciting chase on a runaway train in the London Underground, which also features a secret passage leading into a sarcophagus in the museum. The story of the Egyptian ghost in the station also features in the novel by Keith Lowe, Tunnel Vision (Arrow Books, 2001), when the lead character, who has to travel to every tube station on the system in a single day after a drunken bet, tells his girlfriend that the sound of Egyptian voices can be heard floating down the tunnel.
The British Museum, established in 1753 and opened to the public in 1759.
W.T. Stead (1849-1912). Did he concoct the ghost story about the curse of Princess Amen-Ra?
Some accounts rate the British Museum ghost as the scariest of all the ghost stories on the Underground. We disagree. The essence of a ghost story or experience is a combination of it being believable and yet also understated. The idea of an Egyptian ghost dressed in loincloth and headdress looking for a (dubious) mummy on the platform of a station does not meet these requirements. It’s not a bad tale and, like the curse of Amen-Ra, it is testimony to the power of the press to generate a good, but fictitious story – something the press has been very adept at doing for years.
COVENT GARDEN
The very busy Covent Garden Underground Station was opened on 11 April 1907, four months after the start of the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway services in December 1906. The station, which is now on the Piccadilly Line, was designed by architect Leslie Green and is easily recognisable by the distinctive red-glazed façade. The station is between Holborn and Leicester Square (the journey between Covent Garden and Leicester Square is the shortest distance between two adjacent stations on the Underground). The platforms are accessed primarily by lift (an important point later in relation to a particular ghostly experience) and moves are afoot (2008) to redevelop parts of the station to cope with the heavy use of commuters and tourists.
Although the modern-day Covent Garden has its roots in the seventeenth century, the area that tourists visit today was renovated from the 1970s. Nonetheless the square, with St Paul’s Church to the west, is still recognisable in eighteenth-century drawings. Designed by the great architect Inigo Jones (1573-1652), Covent Garden came to be dominated by the market with the present-day Piazza built in 1830. On 12 April 1665 the first victim of the Great Plague, Margaret Porteous, was buried in St Paul’s Church. Covent Garden was a centre of small businesses and in particular coach makers. Not surprisingly the Underground station was built on what was once a coach maker’s workshop.
A ghost that floats above ground in Covent Garden is that of a nun. Actor Bob Hoskins, who used to work as a porter in Covent Garden, recalled how, in the late 1950s, he encountered the ghost. He was working in a cellar when he saw a woman’s face appear on the wall. Wearing a nun’s habit she reached out to him with upturned hands and spoke, although he could not recall what she said. He told the Guardian (9 October 1999) in an interview that he learned that the area used to be called Convent Garden because the Benedictines of Westminster owned it. He added that, according to local superstition, anyone seeing the nun would have a charmed life. It seemed to work for Bob.
For some Victorian commentators the Underground would bring us closer to the Devil in the disruption of not only burial grounds but also by what was seen as the descent into Hades. Covent Garden had a very popular and influential minister in Revd Dr John Cumming (1807-1881). Between 1832 and 1879 he was minister of the National Scottish Church and spent much of his time in preaching prophecies about the end of the world. ‘Why not build an overhead Railway? … It’s better to wait for the Devil than to make roads down into Hell’, he stormed. In another of his writings in 1860 he commented that, ‘… the forthcoming end of the world will be hastened by the construction of underground railways burrowing into infernal regions and thereby disturbing the Devil’.
Covent Garden Station, the haunt of nineteenth-century actor William Terriss.
St Paul’s Church (‘The Actors’ Church’), Covent Garden, built by Inigo Jones, has been there since 1633. The first-known victim of the plague of 1665-1666, Margaret Ponteous, was buried in the churchyard in April 1665.
Covent Garden. The main building in the Piazza was erected in 1830 although the glass roof did not come until the 1870s.
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sp; Covent Garden has a long association with the theatre. The oldest established is the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which had its origins in a patent granted on the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Other theatres followed and it was this association that provided one of the most famous ghosts of the Underground, that of actor William Terriss (1847-1897).
William Terriss, whose real name was William Charles James Lewin, was a popular leading actor of melodramas as well as being a dapper and fashionable man often known by his trademark white gloves and cape. Described as having a ‘handsome presence, fine voice and gallant bearing’, he was eminently suited for the stage. Terriss had a regular routine that he followed each day and this would include visiting a bakery which used to stand on the site of the station – a place he kept coming back to after his death (the station was not built until eight years after his murder). Despite him being the darling of audiences he clearly had enemies who envied his success. One particular enemy was Richard Archer Prince.
Richard Prince was a struggling actor who had become increasingly mentally unstable and had acquired the nickname ‘Mad Archer’. Such was the state of Prince’s desperation that by December 1897 he had pawned his clothes, save for what he wore. Prince received a letter from the Actors’ Benevolent Fund (ABF) on 16 December stating that they were ending his grant. The ABF recorded what happened when Prince turned up at their office in Adam Street demanding money on the day of the murder. The secretary had refused Prince any money when he then ‘simply crossed over the Strand to Maiden Lane where he knew Terriss had his own private entrance to the Adelphi Theatre separate from the Stage Door in Bull Inn Court, and waited for him to turn up for the evening performance.’ As the unknowing Terriss entered his private door, ‘Prince ran up to him and stabbed him three times with a knife.’ A crowd quickly pounced on Prince whilst a doctor attended to Terriss but it was in vain and he died a few minutes later, a life cut short by murder. Prince told the arresting policeman, ‘He has had due warning, and if he is dead, he knew what to expect from me. He prevented me getting money from the Fund today, and I have stopped him.’ A plaque on the wall commemorates Terriss by the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre which records the event of the murder.
Haunted London Underground Page 4