Last Saturday afternoon Darce and I went to go and see a rather quirky two-handed about Harry Beck at the Cubic Theatre beneath the London Transport Museum in London’s glitzy Covent Garden.
The Truth About Harry Beck tells the story of the rather nerdy draftsman back in the 1930s and his initial production of his map… Sorry, DIAGRAM… of the London Underground.
Initially dismissed by the powers that be as too childish the diagram soon became so popular with the general public and so easy to understand that it became widely adopted not only in London, but in mass-transit systems around the world.
Beck continued to work on the diagram over the years as more stations and more lines were added. Though as he had relinquished the copyright for just five guineas he never saw a massive income from his idea.
Eventually, he got kicked off the project and others took over the development.
Beck tried to regain control of the diagram through threatening legal action, but in 1965 he abandoned the attempt, "bitter and betrayed by the very organisation he had helped, so admirably, to promote.”
A sad ending perhaps, but these days he is rightly recognised as the father of the London Underground diagram.
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