Discover London’s dark side at Night Shift exhibition

    Bus, London, transport
    By Bus to the Pictures Tonight by Tom Eckersely and Eric Lombers, 1935 Credit: London Transport Museum

    Hedonists, rat-catchers, jazz-lovers, hacks and night works of all kinds help London come alive after dark. 

    From September 11, Night Shift, an illuminating new exhibition at London Transport Museum, will be celebrating the nocturnal lives of Londoners and how its transport heritage has met their needs since 1900.

    Night Shift – London After Dark sees the museum’s curators delve deep into the history of travel after dark, reflecting the history of the capital’s glittering nightlife as well as the darker wartime years.

    Designed to entice pleasure-seekers, brilliant posters from the museum’s archives highlight the rise of the West End and the growth of the leisure economy, while evocative archive photographs and films document the transport needs of the night workers of Fleet Street and the subterranean lives of rat-catchers and ‘fluffers’. 

    From Tube sheltering during the Second World War to the burgeoning 1980s clubbing scene, or hard-hitting safety campaigns to the new possibilities of neon, the exhibition explores London’s night transport, from the introduction of electric power through the jazz age to the present day and beyond, offering a real insight into the history, and future, of the vast transport network that weaves its way throughout London once dusk has fallen, yet many Londoners never see.

    Night Shift runs from 11 September 2015 to 10 April 2016 at London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.

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