Londoners still 'taking it'

7th November 1940: Internationally acclaimed artist Bill Brandt is among the photographers recording how Londoners endure the Blitz

Christ Church, Spitalfields: Man sleeping in a stone sarcophagus in Christ Church. Bill Brandt.

Liverpool Street Underground Station Shelter: A man and woman asleep under blankets in the tube tunnel.

Christ Church, Spitalfields: A Sikh family shelter in an alcove of the crypt. Bill Brandt.

The ‘Blitz’ had begun with the bombing attack on London on 7th September, when the London docks had been the prime target. Arguably, this was a strategic target, even if many civilians had been killed. As the bombing campaign continued, it became increasingly clear that Hitler’s ‘terrorangriff’ was exactly that - a ‘terror attack’ designed to intimidate civilians. This week, there were widespread reports of the machine-gunning of civilians, in addition to the bombing.

Alongside the war artists recording the impact on people, the Ministry of Information was employing noted photographer Bill Brandt, widely recognised as one of Britain’s most influential photographers, whose work is now in the collections of art museums around the world. He had pioneered the use of photographs to document society in the 1930s. In November 1940, he made a series of studies¹, in different locations around London, of how people sheltered from the bombing.