David Langdon’s Billy Brown of London Town wartime posters
Introduction
In the Second World War, passengers on the London Transport network had to find their way around the city amid the dangers of air raids. Blackout conditions were imposed at night to try to prevent German bombers from identifying targets. London Transport vehicles were adapted to these conditions and Tube stations were often occupied by shelterers.
It was in this context that the cartoonist David Langdon (1914-2011) was commissioned by London Transport to illustrate public information posters. Langdon created Billy Brown of London Town, a smartly dressed man about town who showed people how to behave and stay safe when travelling around the city. Cartoon imagery was accompanied by catchy rhyming couplets in a series of posters that made Billy Brown a very familiar character.
Travelling in blackout
David Langdon created his first Billy Brown posters in 1940. The intensive air raids of the Blitz began in September, having long been expected. In an attempt to make Londoners safer from bombing, street and exterior lights were extinguished. London buses had their headlights dimmed and anti-blast netting was put up in the windows of all vehicles.
Langdon’s first Billy Brown posters emphasised safety messaging around queueing, hailing, boarding and exiting buses in blackout conditions. With so little light, accidents were common. Passengers were advised to be careful and carry white handkerchiefs and torches to highlight their presence.
Travel etiquette in wartime
By 1941, Langdon’s Billy Brown was becoming increasingly familiar. These posters are typical in continuing to combine cartoons with rhyming couplets. They sometimes conveyed messaging specific to wartime, such as the need for anti-blast netting, but also emphasised general travel etiquette. With wartime London a busy place, particularly with shelterers on Tube station platforms, space was at a premium.
Advice for staff
Some of Langdon’s Billy Brown posters were specifically aimed at London Transport staff. In blackout conditions, they had a vital role to play in calling out stops and destinations. These posters would have been displayed in staff canteens and behind the scenes on the network.
A familiar figure
Such was Billy Brown’s familiarity that by 1943 Langdon’s posters could refer to him with only his initials. The fame of the rhyming couplet style was used in these posters to launch a competition to author two accompanying lines, with the winning entry revealed in the second poster.
Billy Brown became so famous that he inspired a popular song of the day by Noel Gay with the lyrics, ‘Who stood up and saved the town when London Bridge was falling down? Billy Brown of London town’. For others though, Billy’s slightly officious tone could sometimes be grating.
David Langdon was at the start of his career as a cartoonist during the war, pursuing it alongside serving in the Royal Air Force. He became a professional cartoonist for the rest of his working life, producing cartoons for newspapers, magazines and sometimes in advertising. From the 1940s to the 1990s, he was one of Britain’s best-known cartoonists. For millions in wartime London, Billy Brown was his most familiar creation.
