Harry Beck Harry Beck Henry Charles Beck (4 June 1902 – 18 September 1974), known as Harry Beck, was an English technical draughtsman best known for creating the present London Underground Tube map in 1931. Beck drew up the diagram in his spare time while working as an engineering draftsman at the London Underground Signals Office. London Underground was initially sceptical of Beck's radical proposal, an uncommissioned spare-time project, but tentatively introduced it to the public in a small pamphlet in 1933. It was immediately popular, and the Underground has used topological maps to illustrate the network ever since. Prior to the
Blue plaque which have then been inscribed by his wife, Sue, at their home in Cornwall. English Heritage plans to erect an average of twelve new blue plaques each year in London. Many are unveiled by prominent public people: for example, in 2010 a plaque dedicated to John Lennon was unveiled in Montagu Square by Yoko Ono, at the house where the couple shot the cover of the album "". After being conceived by politician William Ewart in 1863, the scheme was initiated in 1866 by Ewart, Henry Cole and the Society of Arts (now the Royal Society of Arts), which erected