North Shields in the Second World War

The Second World War fell heavily on North Shields. A busy fishing port and shipbuilding town on the Tyne, it was exactly the kind of place the Luftwaffe sought out, and its crowded working streets above the Fish Quay paid a terrible price. This is a short account of the town in the war, and of the disaster that remains the darkest night in its history.

A town on the front line

North Shields was never far from the war effort. Its fishing fleet worked on through the danger to help feed the country, while Smith's Dock, the great ship-repair and shipbuilding yard on the riverside, kept vessels at sea. Ship repair on the Tyne was of real strategic value, which made the river and the docks a deliberate target. For the families packed into the streets above the quay, the sirens and the shelters became part of daily life.

The Wilkinson's shelter disaster

Shortly before midnight on Saturday 3 May 1941, a single raider dropped a stick of bombs across the town. The last of them scored a direct hit on W. A. Wilkinson's lemonade factory on the corner of King Street and George Street, whose cellar was in use as a public air-raid shelter. The building and its heavy machinery collapsed into the shelter below, where around 190 people had taken cover.

One hundred and seven people were killed, among them 43 children. It remains the worst single air-raid incident anywhere in the North East of England. The figures can look confusing in different accounts: 107 is the total, of whom 103 were civilians recorded on the official casualty lists and four were service personnel. Whole families were lost together that night.

It is worth clearing up one common misunderstanding. The heritage project that keeps the memory of the disaster alive is called "North Shields 173", and 173 was simply Wilkinson's telephone number, not, as is sometimes assumed, a death toll.

Courage in the rubble

Through the night and into the next day, air-raid wardens and volunteers dug into the wreckage by hand, at great risk to themselves, to reach survivors. Among them, Clarence Burdis was awarded the George Medal for his bravery, and the shelter warden Ellen Lee is remembered for guiding people out through a blocked exit. Most of those who died were laid to rest together at Preston Cemetery.

Other raids on the town

The Wilkinson's disaster was the worst night, but not the only one. Heavy raids at the end of September and start of October 1941 killed around sixty people across North Tyneside, most of them in North Shields, including the crew of the Shields ferry as it lay at the landing stage. Across the whole County Borough of Tynemouth, of which North Shields was the largest part, some 225 people were killed by bombing over the course of the war.

Remembering today

The disaster is marked by a memorial plaque at the Beacon Centre on Northumberland Square, unveiled in 2003, and by the communal graves at Preston Cemetery. Down on the Fish Quay, the striking Corten-steel figure of a lone fisherman, "Fiddler's Green" by the sculptor Ray Lonsdale, was unveiled in 2017. It remembers the fishermen lost at sea rather than the war, but it stands as a fitting place to reflect on all that this small harbour town has given and lost.

More North Shields history

For more of the town's past, see our guides to the interesting facts about North Shields, the North Shields heritage trail and the history of North Shields' high street.

Do you have a family memory of the war in North Shields to share? Get in touch.