The point being missed here, is that people weren’t sleeping in the Underground because there was a shortage of housing in London due to bombing. Evacuations to the countryside freed up a lot more housing than the Luftwaffe destroyed.
That’s true. They had Rest Centres for the people who had lost their houses and had nowhere else to go.
https://mk0rafmuseumxfbci8mu.kinstacdn.com/images/online_exhibitions/restLG.jpg
The rest centres were established in church halls and schools and provided people with a place to sleep, food, facilities, and some services such as replacing lost identity documents, or liaising with the local council to eventually get moved into accommodation.
London had an underground subway system that provided shelter, but most cities that suffered bombing raids did not. If you had a garden, it was common to build a shelter that gave some protection - an Anderson shelter. They were sunk below ground level, which gave some protection from the blast shockwaves.
In central London, people lived in tenements so not many gardens and underground stations used, but not all were suitable, some of the older ones are very shallow ‘cut and cover’ affairs. That did not afford much protection if it was hit by a bomb. There were some direct hits on underground stations used as shelters that caused many casualties, some flooded when the water mains were hit (Balham). There were was also crowding and crushes in the stairs (Bethnal)
Many underground spaces were pressed into services as bomb shelters and in London there was a civil defense project the build huge underground shelters designed for protection. You can still see faded signs on walls with a big S, an arrow and a number pointing in the direction of the nearest shelter and its capacity.
Here is one of the largest under Clapham South station:
While there was a great organised evacuation of children to the countryside, they did not always stay there long. As you might imagine, it was emotionally very difficult for parents and children to be separated and not everyone was pleased to billet children.
For young kids searching the ruins for the remains of prized scraps of twisted metal from bombs, shrapnel, was a popular past time and the ownership of a particularly good specimens was envied. Somewhat like ballbearings and glass marbles, these are currency in the playground.
The huge Clapham South shelter was pressed into service again for temporary housing after the war. In 1948 it was used to house the West Indian immigrants newly arrived on the HMS Empire Windrush. This marked the start of post-war immigration to the UK from the colonies to address the labour shortage.
I think it still exists and is now used to farm mushrooms! London is a warren of tunnels and bunkers built during WW2. People used them for shelter or to work, there were many underground offices and factories. But they were for a national emergency, you would not want to live down there. Some are now tourist attractions.
The loss of housing in London was a serious problem that took many years to solve. There were huge slum clearance projects and many ‘system built’ large scale housing projects. There were also the bungalows known as ‘pre-fabs’ that were built very quickly in open spaces such as local parks. In the 1950s and 1960s huge housing projects were started all around London. Small villages became ‘New towns’ with fast train lines or motorways into London. If you want to hear an authentic Cockney accent it is best to go 30 miles outside to Harlow in Essex.
The London Blitz accounts for the very mixed character housing in London. You will often find lots of social housing projects dotted around all over the place, often in the some seriously swanky areas. The attention of Luftwaffe was quite indiscriminate in that respect.
Today, if you are looking to buy an apartment in London, if it is ‘ex-council’, it means it was formerly part of a local government social housing project and is not in private ownership. It says something about the dire modern building standards that these ex-council flats are often solidly built and some 25% larger that the depressingly compact size of new build properties built by private developers. Housing is something of a political football in the UK after various historic reversals of policy between governments of different political persuasions with very different economic approaches. Consequently the state of the housing stock is not as good as other countries that had to re-build after the bombings of WW2.
That’s right. Greater London experienced a steep fall in population which continued until the 1980s.
According to this link, the population of Greater London was 8,615,050, but only 6,608,598 in 1981.
http://www.demographia.com/dm-lon31.htm
OK, fair enough, but it’s kinda nitpicky when they still weren’t actually living there, which was my point.