Henry Charles Beck (4 June 1902 – 18 September 1974) was an English technical draughtsman who created the first diagrammaticLondon UndergroundTube map in 1931.[1] Beck drew the diagram after being laid off by the Signalling Department of Underground Electric Railways of London.[1]
Although his design was initially rejected, the Publicity Office of London Transport changed their minds after Beck resubmitted an updated copy and the map was first issued as a pocket edition in January 1933. It was immediately popular, and the Underground has used topological maps to illustrate the network ever since. Harry Beck wanted to make the network easier to understand by colouring each train route and using straight lines and 45 degree angles.
Biography
Henry Charles Beck was born on 4 June 1902 in Leyton, to Eleanor Louisa Beck (née Crouch) and Joshua Beck. Brought up and educated in Highgate Village,[2] he started his career in the 1920s as an engineering draughtsman with the London UndergroundSignals Office, where he primarily worked on schematics for electrical systems.[3]
In 1931, while unemployed, he developed his simplified map of the Underground system, which was initially rejected but later accepted. In 1933, he married Nora Beck, and in 1947, he began teaching typography and colour design at the London School of Printing and Kindred Trades, where he remained until retirement.[3] He died in Southampton on 18 September 1974.[4]
Prior to the Beck diagram (the underground map that he created), the various underground lines had been laid out geographically, often superimposed over the roadway of a city map. This meant the centrally located stations were shown very close together and the out-of-town stations spaced far apart. From around 1909 a new type of 'map' appeared inside the train cars; it was a non-geographic lineardiagram, in most cases a simple straight horizontal line, which equalized the distances between stations.
By the late 1920s most Underground lines and some mainline (especially LNER) services displayed these, many of which had been drawn by George Dow. Some writers and broadcasters have speculated that Dow's maps partly inspired Beck's work.[5] The geographical-based map, used immediately prior to Beck, in 1932, was produced by the underground map designer for the period 1926–1932, F. H. Stingemore. It was Stingemore's idea to slightly expand the central area of the map for ease of reading.[6]
Beck's concept
Beck's Underground Map of 1933
It was however, Beck who had the idea of creating a full system map in colour. He believed that Underground passengers were not concerned with geographical accuracy and were more interested in how to get from one station to another and where to change trains. While drawing an electrical circuit diagram, Beck came up with a new idea for a map that was based upon the concept of an electrical schematic on which all the stations were more-or-less equally spaced rather than a geographic map. Beck first submitted his idea to Frank Pick of London Underground in 1931 but it was considered too radical because it did not show distances relative from any one station to the others. The design was therefore rejected by the Publicity department at first, but the designer persisted. So, after a successful trial of 500 copies in 1932, distributed via a few select stations, the map was given its first full publication in 1933 (700,000 copies). The positive reaction from customers proved it was a sound design, and a large reprint was required after only one month.
It is suggested by Degani (2013) that one of the configuration techniques employed by Beck was that of an "underlying grid". In some cases the vertical and horizontal grid units are equalised, but on the whole the grid is rectilinear. The result is a "relaxed grid ... which has a certain rhythm and charm – somewhat similar to the grid used by modern artists (e.g. Piet Mondrian's painting Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, 1937–42.)"[6]
The map after Beck
The modern Tube map, based on the simplified topological design invented by Beck
Beck tried to regain control of the map 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."[6] In 1997, Beck's importance was posthumously recognised, and currently (2022) the statement 'This diagram is an evolution of the original design conceived in 1931 by Harry Beck' is printed on every London Underground map.[citation needed]
Design Icon
As part of the Transported by Design programme of activities, on 15 October 2015, after two months of public voting, Harry Beck's tube map was elected by Londoners as number 3 of the 10 favourite transport design icons.[7][8]
Other works
In 1938 he produced a diagram of the entire rail system of the London region (as far as St Albans in the north, Ongar in the north east, Romford in the east, Bromley in the south east, Mitcham in the south, Hinchley Wood in the south west, Ashford in the west, and Tring in the north west). It included both the Underground and mainlines. It was not published at the time but was seen in Ken Garland's book, first published in 1994; it took until 1973 until any official attempt was made to replicate a rail diagram for the entire London region.[9]
Beck produced at least two versions of a diagram for the Paris Métro. The project, which Beck was never commissioned to do, may have been begun, according to Ken Garland, as early as before the start of World War II.[9] A version dating from approximately 1946 is published in Garland's book. His second version is published for the first time in Mark Ovenden's book about the Paris Métro.[10]
According to some accounts, Beck was never formally commissioned to develop his initial idea and worked on the map only in his spare time. He was thus never actually paid for the map. Other sources report that he was paid a fee of five or ten guineas.[6]
In March 2013 a blue plaque was unveiled on the house where Beck was born, in Wesley Road in Leyton, to mark the 80th anniversary of the Tube map.[13][14]
In 2021, a play, The Truth About Harry Beck, was staged at the Theatre Royal Bath'sUstinov Studio.[15] The play portrays Beck’s journey to create the Tube map and the challenges he faced along the way, focusing on his commitment, and the role of his wife, Nora, in supporting his work.[16] In 2024, the play was staged at the London Transport Museum’s Cubic Theatre.[17]
