Euston Fire Station (172 Euston Rd) We start at the oldest still operational fire station in London. It’s at the South East corner of Euston Trainstation. Subway Lioness, Northern and Victoria.
UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (16 Taviton St) At this school journalist and author Clare Hollingworth (1911-2017) studied. Before being hired by The Daily Telegraph in August on 1939, she helped to arrange British visas, aiding thousands of refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Sudetenland. She was the first correspondent to report the outbreak of the Second World War, as a reported for The Daily Telegraph.
Noor Inayat Khan Blue Plaque (4 Taviton St) and Bust of Noor Inayat Khan (Gordon Square) Noor Inayat Khan was born to an American mother – the poet Amina Begum – and an Indian father – Inayat Khan – who was a musician and Sufi teacher. Noor enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) on 19 November 1940. In 1942 she became a British secret agent, codename Madeline, who gave her life for her country in World War II.
Dillon’s Bookshop (1 Malet Street and 9 Store Street) Una Dillon, full name Agnes Joseph Madeline Dillon (1903-1993), established in 1936 bookshop Dillon’s University Bookshop. The outbreak of World War II saw the nearby University of London and Froebel College evacuated from London, but instead of closing for the war Dillon maintained contact with her customers and shipped orders to their new locations in Cardiff, Leicester and Hertfordshire. When her shop at 9 Store Street suffered bomb damage she temporarily operated from an empty shop opposite.In 1956 she sold her bookstore to the University of London and together they openend the Dillon’s University Bookshop at 1 Malet Street. In 1980 she placed an advertisement in a bus shelter opposite Foyles (stop 9) reading “Foyled again? Try Dillons”. Her sister Tess Dillon had led the physics department at Queen Elizabeth College and her sister Carmen had been a film and production designer and won an Oscar for Laurence Olivier’s film Hamlet (1948). – read more at Women Booksellers in the Twentieth Century
Lilian Bader (Torrington Square) Lilian Bader was one of the first black women to join the British armed forces. Bader was born in Liverpool in 1918 to Marcus Bailey, a Barbadian-born migrant, and a British-born, Irish-raised woman, name unknown. Following her father’s service in the First World War, Bader joined the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) at Catterick Camp, Yorkshire when the Second World War broke out. But she encountered racial prejudice, a struggle that Bader would face throughout her life. Bader was asked to leave Catterick Camp after her father’s Barbadian heritage was discovered. Determined to support the war effort, she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She trained first as an Instrument Repairer, later becoming a Leading Aircraftwoman (LACW), soon gaining the rank of Acting Corporal.
Wiener Holocaust Library and Senate House Library(29 Russell Sq) The Senate House Library has a large collection on women history and the Wiener Holocaust Library organise often talks about the role of women in history.
Pioneer of Women’s suffrage (2 Gower Street) Here Millicent Garrett Fawcett
Bomb street (Bucknall Street) The houses here were totally demolished.
Regent Sound Studio’s (4 Denmark Street) and For over a century Denmark Street has been regarded as the Savile Row of music, helping forge the careers of countless musicians from Vera Lynn to the Rolling Stones and David Bowie. Here at the Tin Pan Alley, as it’s known, Vera Lynn found and recorded the song “We’ll Meet Again,”. The song provided a source of comfort and optimism for the public and troops during WWII.
Foyles Bookshop (107 Charing Cross Road) Christina Foyler was the daughter of co-founder William. William and his brother Gilbert extablished the Foyles Bookshop in 1903. From 1945 till 1999 Christina was running the bookstore. Christina was also the founder of Foyle’s literary lunches. With famous guest like Margaret Tatcher, John Lennon, Agatha Christie and many others. Once Christina rebuked Hitler for having Jewish books burned and offered to buy them instead. Hitler declined, writing that he “would no sooner corrupt the morals of the British than those of the Germans.”
Palace Theater (113 Shaftesbury Ave) The foundation stone, laid by Helen Susan Black in 1888, can still be seen on the façade of the theatre, almost at ground level to the right of the entrance.
Soho Fire Station (126 Shaftesbury Ave) This site was destroyed during WWII and became a Fire Station
The Hem Bar (11 Macclesfield St) This old Dutch bar became during World War II the unofficial headquarters of the Dutch resistance in exile.
Pamela Green (4 Gerrard Street) The home of the famous nude model Pamela Green, who starred in Michael Powell’s cult film Peeping Tom.
The National Portrait Gallery The National Portrait Gallery highlights women through various displays and tours, such as “Inspiring Women” tours and publications like “100 Pioneering Women,” and has actively worked to redress historical imbalances in its collection to include more notable women from diverse fields such as science, the arts, politics, and business.
The Monument of the Women of World WarII The monument is a British national war memorial situated on Whitehall in London next to the Cenotaph at the end of Downing Street. The sculpture represents the wartime contributions of over seven million women, including 650,000 who joined military services. The monument was sculpted by John W. Mills, himself a wartime evacuee when his mother joined the fire service.