chunk_id
stringlengths 5
8
| chunk
stringlengths 1
1k
|
|---|---|
1453_0 | Patrick O'Brian, CBE (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and centred on the friendship of the English naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen Maturin. The 20-novel series, the first of which is Master and Commander, is known for its well-researched and highly detailed portrayal of early 19th-century life, as well as its authentic and evocative language. A partially finished 21st novel in the series was published posthumously containing facing pages of handwriting and typescript.
O'Brian wrote a number of other novels and short stories, most of which were published before he achieved success with the Aubrey–Maturin series. He also translated works from French to English, and wrote two biographies. |
1453_1 | His major success as a writer came late in life, when the Aubrey-Maturin series caught the eye of an American publisher. The series drew more readers and favourable reviews when the author was in his seventies. Near the end of his life, and in the same year that he lost his wife, British media revealed details of O'Brian's early life, first marriage, and post-war change of name, causing distress to the very private author and to many of his readers at that time.
Personal life and privacy |
1453_2 | Childhood, early career and marriages
O'Brian was christened as Richard Patrick Russ, in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, a son of Charles Russ, an English physician of German descent, and Jessie Russ (née Goddard), an English woman of Irish descent. The eighth of nine children, O'Brian lost his mother at the age of four, and his biographers describe a fairly isolated childhood, limited by poverty, with sporadic schooling at St Marylebone Grammar School, 1924 to 1926, while living in Putney, and then at Lewes Grammar School, from September 1926 to July 1929, after the family moved to Lewes, East Sussex, but with intervals at home with his father and stepmother Zoe Center. |
1453_3 | His literary career began in his childhood, with the publication of his earliest works, including several short stories. The book Hussein, An Entertainment and the short-story collection Beasts Royal brought considerable critical praise, especially considering his youth. He published his first novel at age 15, Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda Leopard, with help from his father. |
1453_4 | In 1927 he applied unsuccessfully to enter the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. In 1934, he underwent a brief period of pilot training with the Royal Air Force, but this was not successful, and he left the RAF. Prior to that, his application to the Royal Navy had been rejected on health grounds. In 1935, he was living in London, where he married his first wife, Elizabeth Jones, in 1936. They had two children. The second was a daughter who suffered from spina bifida; she died in 1942, aged three, in a country village in Sussex. When the child died, O'Brian had already returned to London, where he worked throughout the war. |
1453_5 | The details of his work during the Second World War are murky. He worked as an ambulance driver, and he stated that he worked in intelligence in the Political Intelligence Department (PID). Dean King has said O'Brian was actively involved in intelligence work and perhaps special operations overseas during the war. Indeed, despite his usual extreme reticence about his past, O'Brian wrote in an essay, "Black, Choleric and Married?", included in the book Patrick O'Brian: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography (1994) that: "Some time after the blitz had died away I joined one of those intelligence organisations that flourished during the War, perpetually changing their initials and competing with one another. Our work had to do with France, and more than that I shall not say, since disclosing methods and stratagems that have deceived the enemy once and that may deceive him again seems to me foolish. After the war we retired to Wales (I say we because my wife and I had driven ambulances |
1453_6 | and served in intelligence together) where we lived for a while in a high Welsh-speaking valley..." which confirms in first person the intelligence connection, as well as introducing his wife Mary Wicksteed Tolstoy as a co-worker and fellow intelligence operative. |
1453_7 | Nikolai Tolstoy, stepson through O'Brian's marriage to Mary Tolstoy, disputes this account, confirming only that O'Brian worked as a volunteer ambulance driver during the Blitz. Doing this work, he met Mary, the separated wife of Russian-born nobleman and lawyer Count Dimitri Tolstoy. They lived together through the latter part of the war and, after both were divorced from their previous spouses, they married in July 1945. The following month he changed his name by deed poll to Patrick O'Brian.
Sailing experience
As background to his later sea-going novels, O'Brian did claim to have had limited experience on a square-rigged sailing vessel, as described within his previously-quoted 1994 essay: |
1453_8 | However, in 1995, venture capitalist Thomas Perkins offered O'Brian a two-week cruise aboard his then sailing yacht, a ketch. In an article about the experience written after O'Brian's death, Perkins commented that "... his knowledge of the practical aspects of sailing seemed, amazingly, almost nil" and "... he seemed to have no feeling for the wind and the course, and frequently I had to intervene to prevent a full standing gybe. I began to suspect that his autobiographical references to his months at sea as a youth were fanciful."
Life after the Second World War
Between 1946 and 1949 the O'Brians lived in Cwm Croesor, a remote valley in north Wales, where they initially rented a cottage from Clough Williams-Ellis. O'Brian pursued his interest in natural history; he fished, went birdwatching, and followed the local hunt. During this time they lived on Mary O'Brian's small income and the limited earnings from O'Brian's writings. |
1453_9 | In 1949 O'Brian and Mary moved to Collioure, a Catalan town in southern France. He and Mary remained together in Collioure until her death in 1998. Mary's love and support were critical to O'Brian throughout his career. She worked with him in the British Library in the 1940s as he collected source material for his anthology A Book of Voyages, which became the first book to bear his new name – the book was among his favourites, because of this close collaboration. The death of his wife in March 1998 was a tremendous blow to O'Brian. In the last two years of his life, particularly once the details of his early life were revealed to the world, he was a "lonely, tortured, and at the last possibly paranoid figure." |
1453_10 | Media exposure and controversy in his final years
O'Brian protected his privacy fiercely and was usually reluctant to reveal any details about his private life or past, preferring to include no biographical details on his book jackets and supplying only a minimum of personal information when pressed to do so. For many years reviewers and journalists presumed he was Irish, and he took no steps to correct the impression. One interviewer, Mark Horowitz, described the man in his late seventies as "a compact, austere gentleman. ... his pale, watchful eyes are clear and alert." He is polite, formal, and erudite in conversation, an erudition that Horowitz said could be intimidating. He learned from those who worked with O'Brian that the erudition did not go unnoticed, while they remained friends. |
1453_11 | Richard Ollard, a naval historian, calls this particular habit "blowing people out of the game." Ollard, who edited the early Aubrey–Maturin novels, urged O'Brian to tone down the most obscure allusions, though the books remain crammed with Latin tags, antiquated medical terminology and an endless stream of marvellous sounding but impenetrable naval jargon. "Like many who have struggled themselves", Ollard said of his friend, "he thought others should struggle, too." One longtime acquaintance put it more bluntly: "Patrick can be a bit of a snob, socially and intellectually."
In 1998, a BBC documentary and an exposé in The Daily Telegraph made public the facts of his ancestry, original name and first marriage, provoking considerable critical media comment. In his biography of O'Brian, Nikolai Tolstoy claims to give a more accurate and balanced account of his late stepfather's character, actions and motives, particularly in respect of his first marriage and family. |
1453_12 | Lanchester, in reviewing Tolstoy's book, says "The last few years have been disheartening for Patrick O'Brian's many fans." He does not find the arguments altogether persuasive, and with access to documents that Dean King never saw, Tolstoy "gives a portrait of a man who is cold, bullying, isolated, snobbish and super-sensitive." Lanchester closes by saying "Let's agree, we O'Brianists, to read the novels and forget everything else." Veale, in reviewing King's book, says that "however judicious and well-grounded his [King's] speculation, he fails to crack his subject's protective shell. In the end, Aubrey and Maturin will have to thrive on their own—which is how the willfully enigmatic O'Brian most likely intended it." |
1453_13 | As if anticipating 21st-century debates and disappointments once O'Brian's past was exposed, Horowitz interviewed O'Brian at his home in France in 1994: "Until recently, he refused all interviews. Those authors we know the least about, he says, are the ones we get in their purest form, like Homer. In Clarissa Oakes (published as The Truelove in the US), Stephen warns would-be interviewers that "question and answer is not a civilised form of conversation." O'Brian deflects direct inquiries about his private life, and when asked why he moved to the south of France after World War II, he stops and fixes his interrogator with a cold stare. "That seems to be getting rather close to a personal question," he says softly, walking on." |
1453_14 | At his death, many obituaries were published evaluating his work, particularly in the Aubrey–Maturin series, and the too-recent revelations of his biography prior to his marriage to Mary Wicksteed Tolstoy. Playwright David Mamet wrote an appreciation. His American publisher, W W Norton, wrote an appreciation, mentioning their story with O'Brian, how pleased they were the three times he came to the US, in 1993, 1995 and in November 1999 only weeks before his death, and noting sales in the US alone of over three million copies.
Death
He continued to work on his naval novels until his death and spent the winter of 1998–1999 at Trinity College Dublin. He died there on 2 January 2000. His body was returned to Collioure, where he is buried next to his wife.
The "Amis of Patrick O'Brian" association, based in Collioure, has been entrusted with the contents of his writing space, including his books and papers, as well as his writing desk, pens and ink.
Literary career |
1453_15 | As Patrick Russ
O'Brian published two novels, a collection of stories and several uncollected stories under his original name, Richard Patrick Russ. His first novel, Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda-Leopard, was written at the age of 12 and published three years later in 1930. It was a critical success, with a recommendation in the New Statesman and positive reviews in publications including the New York Herald Tribune and the Saturday Review of Literature. Other stories followed, published in boys' magazines and annuals and incorporating themes of natural history and adventure, and a collection of these and other animal stories was published in 1934 under the title Beasts Royal, with illustrations by the noted artist Charles Tunnicliffe, illustrator of Tarka the Otter. |
1453_16 | Hussein: An entertainment, set in India, was published in 1938, when O'Brian was 23. It was notable for being the first book of contemporary fiction ever published by the Oxford University Press, to whose annuals for boys he had been a regular contributor for some years. O'Brian published very little under his original name of Russ during World War II, and nothing after 1940. His change of surname in 1945 necessarily meant abandoning the literary reputation he had built up as R P Russ. |
1453_17 | As Patrick O'Brian
O'Brian returned to writing after the war, when he moved to rural Wales. His non-fiction anthology A Book of Voyages (1947) attracted little attention. A collection of short stories, The Last Pool, was published in 1950 and was more widely and favourably reviewed, although sales were low. The countryside and people around his village in Wales provided inspiration for many of his short stories of the period, and also his novel Testimonies (1952), which is set in a thinly disguised Cwm Croesor, and which was well received by Delmore Schwartz in Partisan Review in 1952. His next novel was The Catalans, published in 1953. The review in the New York Times noted O'Brian's accomplishments in Testimonies; The Catalans was viewed as a series of well-written scenes by an observant author, but the reviewer did not think it held together as a novel. |
1453_18 | In the 1950s O'Brian wrote three books aimed at a younger age group, The Road to Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore. Although written many years before the Aubrey–Maturin series, the two naval novels reveal literary antecedents of Aubrey and Maturin. In The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore, based on events of George Anson's voyage around the world from 1740 to 1744, they can be clearly seen in the characters of Jack Byron and Tobias Barrow in the latter novel. |
1453_19 | Over four decades he worked on his own writings, his British literary reputation growing slowly. He became an established translator of French works into English. His early novels and several of the translations were published by Rupert Hart-Davis from 1953 to 1974. O'Brian wrote the first of the Aubrey-Maturin series in 1969 at the suggestion of American publisher J B Lippincott, following the death of C. S. Forester in 1966, a writer of popular nautical novels. The Aubrey–Maturin books were quietly popular in Britain; after the first four volumes they were not published in the United States. |
1453_20 | In the early 1990s the series was successfully relaunched into the American market by the interest of Starling Lawrence of W W Norton publishers, attracting critical acclaim and dramatically increasing O'Brian's sales and public profile in the UK and America. Paul D Colford notes that when O'Brian "visited the United States a few weeks ago, fans waiting to meet, lunch and have tea with him included Walter Cronkite, Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho) and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who invited O'Brian to attend a session of the high court. Hollywood also wants a piece of the press-shy storyteller." |
1453_21 | The novels sold over three million copies in 20 languages. In its review of 21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (published in 2004), Publishers Weekly says that over six million copies have been sold. Thus O'Brian's greatest success in writing, gaining him fame, a following, and invitations to events and interviews came late in his life, when he was well into his seventies, and accustomed to his private life.
Shortly before his last completed novel was published in October 1999, O'Brian wrote an article for a series of the best in the millennium ending, titled Full Nelson, choosing for his topic Admiral Nelson's victory in the Battle of the Nile in 1798.
Aubrey–Maturin series |
1453_22 | Beginning in 1969, O'Brian began writing what turned into the 20-volume Aubrey–Maturin series of novels. The books are set in the early 19th century and describe the life and careers of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his friend, naval physician and naturalist Dr Stephen Maturin, a man of Irish and Catalan parents. The books are distinguished by O'Brian's deliberate use and adaptation of actual historical events, either integrating his protagonists in the action without changing the outcome, or using adapted historical events as templates. In addition to this trait and to O'Brian's distinctive literary style, his sense of humour is prominent (see Humour in main article, Aubrey–Maturin series).
Technical sailing terminology is employed throughout the series. The books are considered by some critics to be a roman fleuve, which can be read as one long story; the books follow Aubrey and Maturin's professional and domestic lives continuously. |
1453_23 | Other works
As well as his historical novels, O'Brian wrote three adult mainstream novels, six short-story collections, and a history of the Royal Navy aimed at young readers. He was also a respected translator, responsible for more than 30 translations from the French into English, including Henri Charrière's Papillon (UK) and Banco: The further adventures of Papillon, Jean Lacouture's biography of Charles de Gaulle, as well as many of Simone de Beauvoir's later works.
O'Brian wrote detailed biographies of Sir Joseph Banks, an English naturalist who took part in Cook's first voyage (and who appears briefly in O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series), and Pablo Picasso. His biography of Picasso is a massive and comprehensive study of the artist. Picasso lived for a time in Collioure, the same French village as O'Brian, and the two became acquainted there. |
1453_24 | Peter Weir's 2003 film, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is loosely based on the novel The Far Side of the World from the Aubrey–Maturin series for its plot, but draws on a number of the novels for incidents within the film. The character of Jack Aubrey is drawn from the character in the novels.
Awards and honours
In 1995 he was awarded the inaugural Heywood Hill Literary Prize for his lifetime's writings. In his acceptance speech in July 1995, O'Brian, then age 80, said it was the first literary prize of his adult life, in the amount of 10,000 pounds. He received a CBE in 1997. Trinity College Dublin awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1997. |
1453_25 | Original manuscripts
O'Brian claimed that he wrote "like a Christian, with ink and quill"; Mary was his first reader and typed his manuscripts "pretty" for the publisher. O'Brian wrote all of his books and stories by hand, shunning both typewriter and word processor. The handwritten manuscripts for 18 of the Aubrey-Maturin novels have been acquired by the Lilly Library at Indiana University. Only two, The Letter of Marque and Blue at the Mizzen, owned by Stuart Bennet, remain in private hands. Bennet donated his correspondence from O'Brian to the Lilly Library; one of the letters recommends to Bennet that he donate the two manuscripts he holds to Indiana University, where the rest of the manuscripts reside. The O'Brian manuscript collection at the Lilly Library also includes the manuscripts for Picasso and Joseph Banks and detailed notes for six of the Aubrey/Maturin novels. The 2011 exhibit titled Blue at the Mizzen suggests that the manuscript was donated. |
1453_26 | Nikolai Tolstoy also possesses an extensive collection of O'Brian manuscript material, including the second half of Hussein, several short stories, much of the reportedly "lost" book on Bestiaries, letters, diaries, journals, notes, poems, book reviews, and several unpublished short stories.
Bibliography
Aubrey–Maturin series
Master and Commander (1969)
Post Captain (1972)
HMS Surprise (1973)
The Mauritius Command (1977)
Desolation Island (1978)
The Fortune of War (1979)
The Surgeon's Mate (1980)
The Ionian Mission (1981)
Treason's Harbour (1983)
The Far Side of the World (1984)
The Reverse of the Medal (1986)
The Letter of Marque (1988)
The Thirteen-Gun Salute (1989)
The Nutmeg of Consolation (1991)
Clarissa Oakes (1992) (published as The Truelove in the US)
The Wine-Dark Sea (1993)
The Commodore (1994)
The Yellow Admiral (1996)
The Hundred Days (1998)
Blue at the Mizzen (1999)
The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (2004) (published as 21 in the US) |
1453_27 | Fiction (non-serial)
Caesar (1930, his first book, which led him to be often labelled by critics as the 'boy-Thoreau')
Wang Khan of the Elephants (1933)
Hussein, An Entertainment (1938)
Testimonies (1952) (Three Bear Witness in the UK)
The Catalans (1953) (The Frozen Flame in the UK)
The Road to Samarcand (1954)
The Golden Ocean (1956)
The Unknown Shore (1959)
Richard Temple (1962)
Short story collections
Beasts Royal (1934)
The Last Pool and Other Stories (1950)
The Walker and Other Stories (1955)
Lying in the Sun and Other Stories (1956)
The Chian Wine and Other Stories (1974)
Collected Short Stories (1994) (The Rendezvous and Other Stories in the US) |
1453_28 | Non-fiction
Men-of-War: Life in Nelson's Navy (1974).
Pablo Ruiz Picasso: A Biography (1976)
Joseph Banks: A Life (1987) The Harvill Press, London. Paperback reprint, 1989.
Histoire Naturelle Des Indes: The Drake Manuscript in the Pierpont Morgan Library (1996) with Morgan Pierpont and Ruth S Kraemer, Translator, London: W W Norton.
Poetry
The Uncertain Land and Other Poems (2019) |
1453_29 | French to English translations of other authors' works
Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest by Jacques Soustelle. London, George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (1961)
Daily Life in the Time of Jesus by Henri Daniel-Rops. London, George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (1962)
Munich: Peace for Our Time by Henri Nogueres. London, George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (1965)
The Horsemen by Joseph Kessel. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux (1968)
Papillon by Henri Charrière. London, Rupert Hart-Davis (1970)
Banco: The further adventures of Papillon by Henri Charrière. New York, William Morrow (1973)
Target: Heydrich by Miroslav Ivanov (writer). London. Hart-Davis, MacGibbon (1973)
Works by Simone de Beauvoir
De Gaulle The Rebel 1890 - 1944 by Jean Lacouture. London, Collins Harvill (1990)
Edited by O'Brian
A Book of Voyages (1947) (First American Edition 2013) |
1453_30 | Published biographies of O'Brian
Since O'Brian's death, three biographies have been published, though the first was well advanced when he died. The second and third are by O'Brian's stepson Nikolai Tolstoy.
Dean King's Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed was the first biography to document O'Brian's early life under his original name.
Tolstoy's two volumes of biography, Patrick O'Brian: The Making of the Novelist and Patrick O'Brian: A Very Private Life make use of material from the Russ and Tolstoy families and sources, including O'Brian's personal papers and library which Tolstoy inherited on O'Brian's death.
See also
Lord Cochrane "the sea wolf" (1775–1860)
C S Forester, (1899-1966), author of the Horatio Hornblower novels.
References
Bibliography
(US edition of the above book)
(US edition of the above book)
Also of importance when studying O'Brian's works:
(US edition of above book)
External links |
1453_31 | Patrick O'Brian Home Page – introduction to the author and his books, by his US publisher.
WikiPOBia – wiki to annotate the written works of Patrick O'Brian.
Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project – A Google Maps mashup project to map all 21 books in the Aubrey–Maturin series.
A Gunroom guide to Patrick O'Brian Web Resources – comprehensive annotated link list
The Gunroom of HMS Surprise: resource and discussion site. http://hmssurprise.org/
Daisya obriani – Lesser Weevil named for O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian's Telegraph obituary |
1453_32 | English historical novelists
English male novelists
Nautical historical novelists
1914 births
2000 deaths
Writers about the Age of Sail
Writers of historical fiction set in the modern age
Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
French–English translators
English people of German descent
English people of Irish descent
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
People from Chalfont St Peter
20th-century British translators
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English male writers |
1454_0 | This is a list of incidents in London that have been labelled as "terrorism". It includes various bomb attacks and other politically driven violent incidents.
Irish republican attacks
Fenian attacks during the Fenian Dynamite Campaign 1867–1885
1867
13 December 1867: "Clerkenwell Outrage": A bomb planted by Fenians at New Prison in Clerkenwell exploded, killing twelve passers-by.
1881
15 March 1881: A Fenian bomb was found and defused in the Mansion House, London.
1882
12 May 1882: A bomb exploded at the Mansion House, London.
1883
15 March 1883: Bombs exploded at government buildings at Whitehall, within Scotland Yard itself, and at the offices of The Times newspaper. There were no injuries.
30 October 1883: Two bombs exploded in the London Underground, at Paddington (Praed Street) station (injuring 70 people) and Westminster Bridge station. |
1454_1 | 1884
25 February 1884: A bomb exploded in the left-luggage room of Victoria station, London. The building was empty at the time and no-one was injured. Other bombs were defused at Charing Cross station, Ludgate Hill station and Paddington station.
30 May 1884: Three bombs exploded in London: at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Metropolitan Police Service's Special Irish Branch; in the basement of the Carlton Club, a gentlemen's club for members of the Conservative Party; and outside the home of Conservative MP Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn. Ten people were injured. A fourth bomb was planted at the foot of Nelson's Column but failed to explode.
13 December 1884: Three IRB members, who were planting a bomb on London Bridge, were killed when their bomb prematurely exploded. One of the men was William Mackey Lomasney. |
1454_2 | 1885
2 January 1885: A bomb exploded at Gower Street station, London.
20 January 1885: A bomb exploded on a Metropolitan line train at Gower Street (now Euston Square) tube station. No injuries were reported, although some passengers received minor cuts from broken glass.
24 January 1885: Bombs exploded at a number of locations in central London, including the House of Commons chamber, in Westminster Hall, in the Banqueting Room of the Tower of London and London Bridge. Two police officers and four civilians were injured. Two men were sentenced to penal servitude for life as a result. |
1454_3 | Republican attacks during the Sabotage Campaign
On 16 January 1939, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched a campaign of bombing and sabotage against the civil, economic, and military infrastructure of Britain. It was known as the S-Plan or Sabotage Campaign. During the campaign, the IRA carried out almost 300 attacks and acts of sabotage in Britain, killing seven people and injuring 96. It petered out in early 1940. |
1454_4 | 1939
16 January 1939: a bomb exploded outside the control room of a large power station. It created a large crater in the forecourt of the building. There were no casualties and the control station was reportedly undamaged. A second explosion damaged an overhead cable running from Grand Union Canal to Willesden Power Station.
17 January 1939: A bomb exploded at Williams & Deacons Bank, damaging gas mains.
4 February 1939: Two bombs exploded in the London Underground – one at Tottenham Court Road station and one at Leicester Square station. They were timed suitcase bombs stored in the left-luggage rooms overnight. There were no deaths, although two people were wounded and severe damage was done to the stations.
9 February 1939: Two bombs exploded at King's Cross station.
2 March 1939: A bomb exploded on an aqueduct for the Grand Union Canal near Stonebridge Park. |
1454_5 | 23 March 1939: Five bombs exploded at different times during the day. Targets included telephone and gas installations, and the offices of the News Chronicle in Fleet Street.
29 March 1939: Two bombs exploded on Hammersmith Bridge.
31 March 1939: Seven bombs exploded in different parts of the city.
13 April 1939: Six bombs exploded in London and Birmingham. These had the appearance of being no more than trial explosions as all occurred in public lavatories.
5 May 1939: Two bombs exploded.
9 June 1939: Bombs exploded in thirty post offices and postboxes in London, Birmingham and Manchester.
24 June 1939: Several bombs exploded before or after a republican demonstration (under police protection) demanding the release of IRA volunteers.
24 June 1939: Bombs exploded at the London branches of the Midland Bank, Westminster Bank and Lloyds Bank. |
1454_6 | 26 July 1939: Two bombs exploded in the London Underground – one in the left-luggage area of King's Cross station and one in the left-luggage area of Victoria Station. In the King's Cross attack, one man was killed and two wounded. In the Victoria Station attack five were wounded. |
1454_7 | 1940
6 February 1940: Two bombs exploded in mailbags at Euston Station.
23 February 1940: Two bombs exploded in the West End. The devices had been placed in litter bins. More than 20 people were wounded.
6 March 1940: A bomb was set off at Park Lane Bank and in King's Inn Road in London.
17 March 1940: There was an explosion near Paddington Town Hall.
18 March 1940: Bomb explodes on a rubbish dump in London. No injuries.
Republican attacks during the Troubles |
1454_8 | During the Troubles, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other republican groups were responsible for nearly 500 incidents in England, most of them in London. During the thirty-year campaign, 50 people were killed in London. This includes 28 civilians, 15 soldiers and 5 police officers. Two IRA members were also killed. In many cases telephoned warnings were given about bombs due to explode, identified as genuine by the use of a code word. In some cases the warning gave the wrong location, or did not give enough time to evacuate the area. Hoax calls, intended to cause disruption, were often made. |
1454_9 | 1970–1979
1973
8 March 1973: The Provisional Irish Republican Army conducted its first operation in England, planting four car bombs in London. Two of the car bombs were defused: a fertilizer bomb in a car outside the Post Office in Broadway and the BBC's armed forces radio studio in Dean Stanley Street. However, the other two exploded, one near the Old Bailey (1973 Old Bailey bombing) and the other at Ministry of Agriculture off Whitehall. Ten members of the IRA unit, including Gerry Kelly, Roy Walsh, Dolours Price and Marian Price, were arrested at Heathrow Airport trying to leave the country.
23 August 1973: A bomb was found in an abandoned bag in Baker Street station ticket hall. The bomb was defused. A week later another bomb was found by a member of staff at the same station and was also defused.
31 August: A bomb exploded in Old Quebec Street, Marble Arch damaging two hotels.
8 September 1973: A bomb exploded in the ticket office at Victoria station injuring 4 people. |
1454_10 | 10 September 1973: King's Cross station and Euston station bombings: Two bombs at mainline stations injured 13 people and brought chaos to central London. The first explosion at King's Cross station – which injured five people – occurred without any warning at 1224 BST, seconds after a witness saw a youth throw a bag into a booking hall. Fifty minutes later a second blast rocked a snack bar at Euston station, injuring a further eight people.
18 December 1973: 1973 Westminster bombing: A bomb exploded in Thorney Street, which leads off Horseferry Road. The bomb was planted in a car which was known to have been stolen in London, and was parked outside Horseferry House, a building occupied by the Home Office, and opposite Thames House, which is mainly occupied by the Department of Trade and Industry. Both these buildings, and others nearby, were extensively damaged. At least 40 people were injured. |
1454_11 | 24 December 1973: The Provisional IRA left two packages which exploded almost simultaneously in the late evening on Christmas Eve. One was in the doorway of the North Star public house, at the junction of College Crescent and Finchley Road, Swiss Cottage, which exploded injuring six people, and the other exploded on the upstairs verandah of the nearby Swiss Cottage Tavern where an unspecified number of people were injured.
26 December 1973: A bomb was detonated in a telephone kiosk in the booking hall at Sloane Square station. Nobody was injured. |
1454_12 | 1974
5 January 1974: Two bombs exploded within three minutes of each other. The first at Madame Tussauds, the second during the Boat Show at Earls Court Exhibition Centre. Police confirmed a telephone warning had been given shortly before both explosions allowing evacuations at both sites and there were no fatalities or injuries reported. It was later confirmed the devices had been planted by the IRA. |
1454_13 | 19 May 1974: A bomb exploded on the third level of a multi-storey car park at Terminal 1 at Heathrow Airport, London. of explosive was in left a BMC 1100 car. The Press Association had received a warning at 11.05 a.m. and police were clearing the site at 11.17 a.m when the explosion occurred. Four people suffered minor injuries. Several vehicles were destroyed and others damaged. At 10.25 p.m. another warning was received about a bomb at the NAAFI headquarters in Kennington Lane. A police search found a bag containing about of explosive at the rear of the building. The bomb was defused.
17 June 1974: 1974 Houses of Parliament bombing: A bomb exploded at the Houses of Parliament in London, causing extensive damage and injuring 11 people. |
1454_14 | 17 July 1974: 1974 Tower of London bombing: An explosion in the Tower of London left one person dead and 41 injured. This was the second bomb in London on this day. At 0430 BST there was an explosion at government buildings in Balham, South London. Nobody was injured in the morning blast but there was substantial damage to surrounding buildings.
11 October 1974: Bombs explode at Victory Services Club and Army and Navy Club. One injured.
22 October 1974: Brook's Club bomb attack: A bomb exploded in the Brooks Club, London, injuring three members of staff.
24 October 1974: Harrow School bombing: No injuries.
7 November 1974: An off-duty soldier and a civilian were killed when a bomb was thrown through the window of the Kings Arms pub in Woolwich, and 28 people were injured.
25 and 27 November 1974: 1974 London pillar box bombings: Provisional IRA exploded bombs inside pillar boxes in various places around London, injuring 40 people. |
1454_15 | 30 November 1974: A device exploded near Talbot Public House in Little Chester Street, SW1. Eight people injured.
11 December 1974: One person was wounded in an explosion at the Naval and Military Club in Piccadilly.
14 December 1974: Shooting at the Churchill Hotel in Portman Square injure four people.
17 December 1974: Bombs detonated on two telephone exchanges: one on Draycott Avenue, SW3, injuring four people; another in Chenies Street, killing one person and injuring another.
19 December 1974: Oxford Street bombing: The IRA carried out a bomb attack on Selfridge's department store in Oxford Street, London. A time bomb had been placed in a car which was then parked outside the store. Three telephone warnings were given and the area was evacuated. The explosion was later estimated to have caused £1.5 million worth of damage. |
1454_16 | 21 December 1974: A bomb exploded on the first floor in the furniture department of Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, London causing a fire but without injuries. Another bomb was defused in the King's Arms public house in Warminster, Wiltshire.
22 December 1974: A car bomb exploded at former Prime Minister Edward Heath's home in Victoria, London. Heath was not at home at the time but arrived 10 minutes later. Minor damage. No injuries. |
1454_17 | 1975
19 January 1975: Eight people were injured in machinegun attacks on Portman Hotel and Carlton Tower Hotel.
23 January 1975: A time bomb at the Woodford Waterworks pumping station in North London exploded, causing three injuries.
27 January 1975: Seven time-bombs at multiple spots in London. At 6:30 pm a bomb exploded at Gieves, in Old Bond Street. At 9:30 pm bombs exploded at the Moreson chemical plant in Ponders End and a disused gas works in Enfield. Only minimal damage was caused by these two bombs. Two further bombs exploded in Kensington High Street and Victoria Street. A warning was given of a bomb in Putney High Street and a British Army bomb-disposal officer was able to defuse the device. A warning was also given for a bomb in Hampstead and it was defused. Two people were injured from the Kensington High Street bomb.
26 February 1975: Murder of Stephen Tibble. |
1454_18 | 28 August 1975: Seven people were injured when a bomb exploded near Peter Browns Outfitters in Oxford Street, London, outside the south-east corner of Selfridges store. A telephone warning was issued to The Sun newspaper five minutes before the explosion.
29 August 1975: One person was killed in an explosion in Kensington Church Street.
5 September 1975: London Hilton bombing: Two people were killed and 63 injured when an IRA bomb exploded in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in London.
29 September 1975: Bomb in Oxford Street injure seven.
9 October 1975: 1975 Piccadilly bombing: A bomb detonated at a bus stop outside Green Park tube station, killing 23-year-old Graham Ronald Tuck and injuring at least 20 people – two of them children.
12 October 1975: Bomb planted at Lockett's Restaurant in Marsham Street, Westminster, a popular haunt of Tory MPs. It contained 27.5 lb of gelignite. It was spotted by the restaurant manager and defused with minutes to spare. |
1454_19 | 23 October 1975: Device explodes in Campden Hill Square, W8, killing one person and injuring one.
29 October 1975: Trattoria Fiore bombing: 18 people are injured in a bomb attack on an Italian restaurant.
3 November 1975: Several people injured by a car bomb in Connaught Square, London W2.
12 November 1975: Scott's Oyster Bar bombing - one killed and 15 hurt.
17 November 1975: Walton's Restaurant bombing: A bomb was thrown threw a window into Walton's Restaurant in Walton Street, Knightsbridge, killing two people and injuring 23 others. The restaurant was owned by established restaurateurs Robert Wren and Norman Swallow and was often frequented by celebrity diners.
27 November 1975: Ross McWhirter was shot at his home Village Road, Bush Hill Park, Enfield, Middlesex by two IRA volunteers, Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty, and died soon after in hospital.
6–12 December 1975: Balcombe Street Siege: Four IRA members held two people hostage at 22b Balcombe Street. |
1454_20 | 1976
29 January 1976: 12 bombs exploded in the West End of London during the night. A 13th device was discovered later in an HMV record store. The bombs were small, between about . Several started small fires. One person was injured.
13 February 1976: A bomb was found in a small case at Oxford Circus station and was defused.
21 February 1976: Bomb at Selfridges in Oxford Street cause five injuries.
4 March 1976: Cannon Street train bombing: A bomb exploded in an empty train near Cannon Street station, injuring eight people in a passing train. |
1454_21 | 15 March 1976: West Ham station attack: An IRA bomb exploded on a Metropolitan line train at West Ham station, on the Hammersmith & City section of the line. The bomber, Vincent Donnelly, possibly took the wrong train and attempted to return to his destination. However, the bomb detonated prior to reaching the City of London. Donnelly shot Peter Chalk, a Post Office engineer, and shot and killed the train's driver Julius Stephen, who had attempted to catch the perpetrator. Donnelly then shot himself, but survived and was apprehended by police.
16 March 1976: An empty train was severely damaged by a bomb at Wood Green station. The train was about to pick up fans from an Arsenal football match, but the bomb detonated prior to arriving at the station, injuring one passenger standing on the platform. Three men were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for this attack. |
1454_22 | 27 March 1976: 1976 Olympia bombing: A bomb placed by the Provisional IRA exploded in a litter bin at the top of an escalator in a crowded exhibition hall. 20,000 people were attending the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition at the time. 70 were injured. |
1454_23 | 1977
29 January 1977: Thirteen bombs detonated in and around Oxford Street within 50 minutes shortly after midnight, wrecking buildings and setting Selfridges ablaze. At least one man was injured.
1978
18 December 1978: Three bombs exploded near the British Museum and YMCA. Four people were hurt.
1979
18 January 1979: A Provisional IRA bomb explodes, damaging gas holders and causing a fire at the East Greenwich Gas Works. The bombing occurred a few hours after another bomb exploded at a Texaco fuel facility at Canvey Island.
30 March 1979: Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Airey Neave was killed as he left the House of Commons car park by a car bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in 1979.
1980–1989
1980
2 December 1980: A device exploded at Princess Louise Regiment Territorial Army Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W6, injuring five people. |
1454_24 | 1981
8 January 1981: A bomb was planted in the Suvla barrack block at RAF Uxbridge. The device was discovered and petrol surrounding the bomb was moved away. The 35 RAF musicians and 15 airmen living there were evacuated before it exploded. The building was damaged by the blast and debris thrown across the Hillingdon Road but no one was injured.
10 October 1981: Chelsea Barracks bombing: A bomb blast on Ebury Bridge Road next to Chelsea Barracks killed two people and injured 39.
17 October 1981: A bomb attached to a car in Dulwich, London SE21 injured one person, Lieutenant-General Sir Steuart Pringle.
26 October 1981: A bomb planted by the IRA in a Wimpy Bar on Oxford Street killed Kenneth Howorth, the Metropolitan Police explosives officer who was attempting to defuse it.
23 November 1981: A device exploded at Royal Artillery HQ, Government House, Woolwich New Road, London SE18 injuring two people. |
1454_25 | 1982
20 July 1982: Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings: Two bombs in Hyde Park and Regent's Park, London by the Provisional IRA killed 11 members of the Household Cavalry and the Royal Green Jackets. Seven horses were also killed.
28 November 1982: A parcel bomb exploded in 10 Downing Street, the residence of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, slightly injuring an aide. The INLA claimed responsibility in a call to a Belfast radio station.
1983
10 December 1983: A device exploded at Royal Artillery Barracks, Repository Road, London SE18 injuring three people.
17 December 1983: Harrods bombings: Harrods West London department store was bombed by the IRA during Christmas shopping. Six people were killed (including three police officers) and 90 injured. |
1454_26 | 1985
23 June 1985: A bomb was found at the Rubens Hotel, a tourist hotel near Buckingham Palace, and made safe, based on information obtained following the arrest of 12 people including Patrick Magee who was wanted in connection with the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton in September 1984. It was believed to be part of a campaign and hotels in resorts throughout Britain were searched.
11 November 1985: Three bombs planted by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) outside Chelsea Barracks were discovered and defused.
1988
1 August 1988: Inglis Barracks bombing: A device exploded at Inglis Barracks, London NW7 killing one person and injuring eight others.
1989
15 November 1989: A device was discovered in Kensington and defused. No injuries. |
1454_27 | 1990–1999
1990
14 May 1990: 1990 Eltham bombing: A device exploded at Service Education Centre, Eltham, injuring seven people.
16 May 1990: 1990 Wembley bombing: The IRA planted a bomb underneath a minibus at the Army Recruiting Centre in Wembley, which detonated killing Sgt Charles Chapman and injuring four others.
23 May 1990: A car was involved in a high-speed chase in Lordship Lane, Tottenham, north London and contained two loaded Kalashnikov semi-automatic rifles discovered by police afterwards
9 June 1990: Honourable Artillery Company bombing: An explosion at Honourable Artillery Company HQ, City Road, London EC1 injured 19 people.
21 June 1990: A device exploded at RAF Stanmore Park, Uxbridge. No injuries.
25 June 1990: Carlton Club bombing: A bomb exploded at Carlton Club, St. James, London SW1 injuring 20 people.
6 July 1990: A small device exploded in a litter bin in The Strand, London WC2. No injuries. |
1454_28 | 20 July 1990: London Stock Exchange bombing: The IRA detonated a large bomb at the London Stock Exchange causing massive damage but no injuries.
6 August 1990: A device was discovered at the former home of Lord Armstrong in London NW8 and defused. No injuries.
17 September 1990: An Army colour sergeant was shot and injured as he sat in a car outside the Army Information Centre, Finchley, London.
27 September 1990: A device was discovered at the Royal Overseas League, Park Place, London WC1 and defused. No injuries. |
1454_29 | 1991
7 February 1991: Downing Street mortar attack: Three mortar bombs were fired at 10 Downing Street. One minor injury.
18 February 1991: Victoria station and Paddington station bombings: A bomb exploded in Paddington Station, damaging the building's roof but causing no casualties. Three hours later another bomb exploded at Victoria Station. One man was killed and 38 people injured.
28 June 1991: A device was discovered outside the Beck Theatre, Hayes, Middlesex and defused. No injuries.
5 August 1991: A fire was caused by incendiary devices at the Cambridge Public House, Charing Cross Road, London. No injuries.
29 August 1991: Three incendiary devices were discovered under a seat at London Underground Depot, Hammersmith W6. No injuries.
31 August 1991: An incendiary device was discovered at the Bargain Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London WC2. No injuries. |
1454_30 | 1 December 1991: A number of incendiary devices ignited at The Discount Furniture Store, Habitat, The World of Leather, The Reject Shop, Tottenham Court Road causing damage to property but no injuries.
2 December 1991: An incendiary device ignited at Littlewoods, Oxford Street, London W1. No injuries.
14 December 1991: Four devices were found in shops at the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. No injuries.
15 December 1991: An incendiary device partially ignited at the Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London WC2. No injuries.
16 December 1991: A bomb exploded on the railway line near Clapham Junction. No injuries.
23 December 1991: Incendiary devices ignited at Ilford Underground Depot, Neasden Underground Deport and on a train at Harrow on the Hill. No injuries. |
1454_31 | 1992
10 January 1992: A small device exploded at Whitehall Place, London SW1. No injuries.
17 January 1992: Two incendiary devices were discovered at the Marquis of Granby Public House, Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1. No injuries.
30 January 1992: An incendiary device was found at Elephant and Castle Underground Depot, London SE17. No injuries.
3 February 1992: An incendiary device was found under a seat at Neasden Underground Depot. No injuries.
7 February 1992: An incendiary device ignited at London Underground Sidings between Barking and Upney stations. No injuries.
11 February 1992: A small device was discovered in a telephone box outside the Treasury, Parliament Street, London SW1 and made safe. No injuries.
28 February 1992: London Bridge bombing: A bomb exploded at London Bridge station injuring 29 people.
29 February 1992: Device exploded at the Crown Prosecution Service, London EC4 injuring two people. |
1454_32 | 1 March 1992: A small device was discovered at White Hart Lane railway station Tottenham, London N17 and defused.
10 March 1992: A small device exploded beside railway line near Wandsworth Common railway station, London SW18. No injuries.
6 April 1992: A device exploded outside a building housing various offices at Bridle Lane, near Piccadilly Circus, London W1. |
1454_33 | 10 April 1992: Baltic Exchange bombing: A large bomb exploded outside 30 St Mary Axe in the City of London. The bomb was contained in a large white truck and consisted of a fertiliser device wrapped with a detonation cord made from Semtex. It killed three people: Paul Butt, aged 29; Thomas Casey, aged 49, a Baltic Exchange employee; and 15-year-old Danielle Carter. Several other people were critically or severely injured. The bomb also caused damage to surrounding buildings (many of which were further damaged by a second bomb the following year). The bomb caused £800 million worth of damage—£200 million more than the total damage costs resulting from all 10,000 previous explosions that had occurred relating to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. A new skyscraper was built on the site of the previous historic building. |
1454_34 | 11 April 1992: 1992 Staples Corner bombing: A large bomb exploded underneath the A406 flyover at Staples Corner, causing serious damage to roads and nearby buildings including a B&Q DIY store and causing the closure of the junction. The blast was large enough to be felt many miles away.
7 June 1992: A device exploded at the Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 causing blast damage. No injuries.
10 June 1992: A small device exploded in a litter bin near the Army and Navy department store, Wilcox Place, Victoria Street. No injuries.
15 June 1992: A device exploded in a taxi cab, which had been hijacked, at St. Albans Street, near Piccadilly Circus. No injuries.
25 June 1992: A device hidden in a brief case exploded at Coleman Street, City of London EC2.
6 September 1992: A small device exploded in the gents' toilets in the foyer of the London Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London W1 causing little damage and no casualties. |
1454_35 | 17 September 1992: Two incendiary devices caused a small fire at Madame Tussaud's, Marylebone Road, London NW1. A small device exploded at The Planetarium, Marylebone Road, London NW1 causing minor damage. Two incendiary devices were discovered at Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 and extinguished, causing minor damage.
7 October 1992: A small device exploded in a litter bin at the junction of The Haymarket and Panton Street, Piccadilly SW1. Five people suffered minor injuries. Minimal damage. A small device exploded behind a BT junction box near Centre Point, Flitcroft Street, London WC2 causing slight damage and no casualties.
8 October 1992: A device exploded under a car at Tooley Street, London SE1 causing damage to two other cars and slightly injuring one person; and a small device exploded under a car at Melcombe Street, London NW1, causing little damage and no injuries. |
1454_36 | 9 October 1992: Small device exploded under a car at the car park of the Royal British Legion, Nursery Road, Southgate N14. No injuries. A small device exploded under a car at the Car Park, Arnos Grove Underground Station. No injuries.
10 October 1992: A device exploded in a phone box outside Paddington Green Police Station, Harrow Road, Paddington W2. One person injured.
12 October 1992: Sussex Arms bombing: A device exploded in the gentlemen's toilet of the Sussex Arms public house in Covent Garden, killing one person (who died the following day as a result of injuries) and injuring four others.
19 October 1992: Small device exploded under the wheel arch of a coach parked outside the Novotel Hotel, Shortlands, Hammersmith W6. No casualties. Device exploded under a car at Oxenden Street, London SW1. Two people treated for shock. |
1454_37 | 21 October 1992: A device exploded on the track near Silver Street station Edmonton as a train was passing, causing little damage. Two people were treated for minor injuries. A device, believed to have been hung on railings at Princess Louise Territorial Army Centre, Hammersmith Road W6, exploded. Three people suffered minor injuries. A device exploded causing slight damage to the track near Harrow Road (junction with Furness Road) NW10, but no casualties.
22 October 1992: A small device exploded causing damage to a sewage pipe at Wick Lane E3. No casualties.
25 October 1992: A device exploded in a doorway in London SW1 causing some damage to the building and to nearby cars. No casualties.
30 October 1992: A small device exploded in a hijacked minicab outside Cabinet Office Whitehall, London SW1 (near Downing Street). No one was injured. |
1454_38 | 14 November 1992: Stoke Newington Road lorry bomb: A van discovered in Stoke Newington Road, London N16 containing a very large improvised explosive device. One policeman was shot and injured confronting two men.
15 November 1992: The IRA planted a bomb at Canary Wharf in the Docklands. The device was spotted by security guards and was deactivated safely.
16 November 1992: A device in van in Collingwood Street, Bethnal Green E1 was made safe.
1 December 1992: A large improvised explosive device in van at junction of Stephens Street and Tottenham Court Road made safe.
9 December 1992: An HME device partially detonated in a van in car park at Woodside Park Underground station, London N12. No injuries.
10 December 1992: Two devices exploded in litter bins outside shops at Wood Green Shopping Centre, London N22. Eleven people were slightly injured. |
1454_39 | 17 December 1992: A bomb hidden in a litter bin in a third-floor men's lavatory of the John Lewis department store, Oxford Street, London, by the IRA detonated just after 11 am. A second bomb exploded 15 minutes later at the rear of the store, in Cavendish Square, while shoppers and staff were still being evacuated. Four people were injured. Another small device exploded in a litter bin Cavendish Square, W1 slightly injuring three people.
22 December 1992: A small device exploded on an emergency staircase at Hampstead tube station. |
1454_40 | 1993
6 January 1993: Incendiary attacks on London shops: An incendiary device ignited at Reject Shop, Plaza Shopping Centre, London W1 causing minor damage; a very small device exploded at Dillons' Bookshop, Northumberland Avenue, WC2 causing little damage; an incendiary device ignited at C&A, Oxford Street, W1, causing very little damage; and an incendiary device ignited at Video Shop, 60 Oxford Street W1 causing minor damage. On 7 January 1993, an unignited incendiary device was found at Dillon's Bookshop, Northumberland Avenue W1. On 14 January 1993, an unignited incendiary device was found at Top Shop, Oxford Circus W1.
28 January 1993: 1993 Harrods bombing: A bomb exploded in a litter bin outside Harrods, injuring four people and damaging of shop front. |
1454_41 | 3 February 1993: A small device exploded on train stopped at Kent House station, Kent and evacuated following warnings. No casualties. A device exploded in underground passageway at South Kensington tube station, London SW7 following a warning and evacuation. No casualties.
10 February 1993: A small device exploded in doorway of block of flats in London SW1. Minor damage. No injuries.
27 February 1993: Camden Town bombing: A bomb exploded in a litter bin outside a McDonald's restaurant in Camden Town, injuring 18 people, two seriously.
7 April 1993: A small device exploded in builders skip in Argyle Square, London WC1. Minor damage. No injuries |
1454_42 | 24 April 1993: Bishopsgate bombing: The IRA detonated a huge truck bomb in the City of London at Bishopsgate. It killed photographer Ed Henty, injured over 40 people, and causing approximately £1 billion worth of damage, including the near destruction of St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate church, and serious damage to Liverpool Street station. Police had received a coded warning, but were still evacuating the area at the time of the explosion. The area had already suffered damage from the Baltic Exchange bombing the year before.
The same day, two small devices exploded in hijacked minicabs at Manor House tube station, London N22 and Judd Street, St. Pancras, London WC1. No injuries.
28 August 1993: A small device containing Semtex was discovered in Wormwood Street, London (City) EC2. It was disrupted by a controlled explosion, causing no damage or injuries. |
1454_43 | 16 September 1993: Two small incendiary devices were found Curzon Phoenix Cinema, Charing Cross Road WC2. One small incendiary device found at the MGM Cinema, Shaftsbury Avenue WC2. They had all malfunctioned, causing no damage or injuries.
1 to 8 October 1993: Over eight days, a series of IRA bombs were left in various London locations. On 1 October, four bombs were left on Finchley Road, London NW8, three of which exploded on 2 October 1993. Five people were injured by falling glass. The fourth device was found and made safe. On 4 October, pairs of bombs were left in Highgate (where one failed to explode), two bombs exploded in Crouch End, and Archway, causing significant localised damage but no injuries. On 8 October, bombs exploded in Humber Road near the North Circular Road junction of Staples Corner and outside the Black Lion Public House at 295 West End Lane, West Hampstead, NW6, again causing damage but no injuries. |
1454_44 | 29 October 1993: A small device exploded beside a car in Edwardes Square W8 causing extensive damage to car but no injuries.
20 December 1993: A postal device was discovered at a sorting office, London EC1 and was made safe. No damage. No injuries. Six devices were discovered in a holdall at the Travellers Tavern, Elizabeth Street, Victoria, London SW1. At least one ignited. No injuries, minor damage. A package ignited at Mount Pleasant Sorting Office, London EC1. No injuries, minor damage. A small device ignited in a litter bin at Northfields Tube Station, London W13. No significant damage and no injuries. |
1454_45 | 21 December 1993: A series of coded bomb warnings closed 40 British Rail stations, paralysed large sections of London Underground, affected more than 350,000 commuters and cost the capital's economy an estimated £34 million. London Underground evacuated 50,000 to 60,000 people from 100 Tube stations in 15 minutes at the height of the morning rush hour. About 300,000 rail commuters were either stranded in trains or found services cancelled. Deliberately vague warnings followed an IRA tactic to cause widespread travel disruption was in and around the capital. |
1454_46 | 1994
27 to 29 January 1994: Incendiary devices ignited at C&A, Mothercare, Silverdale Travel Goods and Nightingales, all in Oxford Street W1, causing minor damage. Two more incendiary devices were discovered at C&A and Nightingales and made safe.
18 to 22 February 1994: Incendiary devices and one very small high explosive device were planted in various London shops: a record shop at 157 Charing Cross Road WC2; Top Shop, Oxford Circus W1; Hennes, Oxford Circus W1; a newsagents (which was destroyed), Great Cumberland Place W1; Burtons, New Oxford Street WC1; Burtons, Regent Street W1; Liberty's, Regent Street W1; Mr. Byrite, Oxford Circus W1; and Mr. Handy, Edgware Road W2. Some devices ignited causing damage. Others were discovered and made safe. No injuries. |
1454_47 | 9 to 13 March 1994: Heathrow Airport mortar attacks: The IRA launched a series of mortar attacks at the capital's main airport. On 9 March, four mortar bombs fired from a car parked at the Excelsior Hotel landed on or near the northern runway. On 11 March, four mortar bombs fired from waste ground landed on an aircraft parking area near Terminal Four. On 13 March, five mortar bombs launched from waste ground landed in the vicinity of Terminal Four. None exploded and there was no damage, but the attack caused much disruption to travel when areas of the airport were closed over the period.
10 June 1994: Two incendiary devices discovered at Liberty's, Oxford Street, London W1 and made safe.
11 June 1994: An incendiary device ignited at Mr. Byrite's, Oxford Street, London W1 causing little damage. A further device had failed to detonate. |
1454_48 | 22 August 1994: A high explosive device was found in litter bin outside Laura Ashley shop in Regent Street Wl and defused. There were no injuries or damage. |
1454_49 | 1996
9 February 1996: Docklands bombing: The IRA bombed the South Quay area of Canary Wharf, London, killing two people and injuring some 40, and causing an estimated £100 million worth of damage.
15 February 1996: A high explosive bomb placed in a telephone box at the junction of Charing Cross Road and Litchfield Street, London WC2 was disarmed by Police.
18 February 1996: Aldwych bus bombing: A bomb detonated prematurely on a bus travelling along Wellington Street, Aldwych, London WC2, killing Edward O'Brien, the IRA terrorist transporting the device and injuring eight others.
9 March 1996: A bomb hidden in a litter bin exploded in Old Brompton Road near Earl's Court Exhibition Centre in west London, causing damage to vehicles.
17 April 1996: A bomb exploded before 10pm in The Boltons, Earl's Court Road, west London. No injuries occurred but it caused damage to properties. |
1454_50 | 24 April 1996: 1996 Hammersmith Bridge bomb: A major bomb that could have caused catastrophic damage failed to explode properly in west London. |
1454_51 | 1997
29 April 1997: A series of IRA bomb warnings and two bomb explosions on an electricity pylon near the M6 junction 10A disrupted transport networks in southern England and the midlands. In the London area, Heathrow airport and the M25 motorway were closed. A spokesman for Britain's transport industry claimed that a minimum of £30 million of losses had been caused.
Republican attacks after the Good Friday Agreement
After the Belfast Agreement came into effect in December 1999 the Real IRA, dissident republicans opposed to the Agreement, continued to carry out attacks in London. |
1454_52 | 2000
1 June 2000: A bomb planted by the Real IRA detonated on Hammersmith Bridge at 4.30 am, but failed to cause much damage.
19 July 2000: An explosive at Ealing Broadway station in west London at 10.30 am was discovered, and another in Whitehall in Westminster at 1.30 pm. Both were destroyed by police. Another bomb placed on a railway track in west London on the line to Ealing Broadway was also controllably exploded by police. It was intended to disrupt the Queen Mother's centenary pageant.
20 September 2000: 2000 MI6 attack: The SIS Building (commonly known as MI6 headquarters) in Vauxhall, Lambeth was attacked using a Russian-made RPG-22 anti-tank rocket. Striking the eighth floor, the missile caused superficial damage. The Anti-Terrorist branch of the Metropolitan Police attributed responsibility to the Real IRA.
2001 |
1454_53 | 21 February 2001: A Real IRA bomb disguised as a torch exploded outside a British Army barracks in Shepherd's Bush, West London, after a 14-year-old army cadet picked it up. The cadet, Stephen Menary, lost his left hand and left eye, and suffered severe stomach and chest injuries.
3–4 March 2001: BBC Television Centre bombing: of high explosive had been placed in a red taxi and left near the main front door of BBC Television Centre, on Wood Lane in the White City area of West London. Just after midnight, police were attempting to carry out a controlled explosion on the bomb when it went off. Staff had already been evacuated after a coded warning. One person suffered cuts to his eye caused by glass debris. Damage included numerous smashed windows in the front entrance.
15 April 2001: A device packed with up to 1 lb of high explosives exploded outside a Royal Mail sorting office in Hendon, north London, at 23:28. The attack blew out windows but caused no injuries. |
1454_54 | 6 May 2001: Another bomb detonated at 01:53 outside the same Royal Mail office in Hendon, injuring one person. It was linked to the 20th anniversary of Bobby Sands's death.
3 August 2001: Ealing bombing: A car bomb containing of explosives in Ealing Broadway, West London, England, injuring seven people. Apart from the damage caused directly by the explosion, around £200,000 of further damage to property in the adjacent Ealing Broadway shopping centre was caused by flooding from a ruptured water main. |
1454_55 | Attacks related to Middle East politics
1947
7 March 1947:The Stern Gang detonated a bomb in a London social club used by students and servicemen from the West-Indies and Africa, just off St Martin's Lane.
15 April 1947: a bomb consisting of twenty-four sticks of explosives was planted in the Colonial Office, Whitehall. It failed to explode due to a faulty timer. The bomb was planted by the same organisation as the March bomb.
1969
18 July 1969: Bombs planted by a Palestinian group exploded in a Marks & Spencer store in London.
1970
6 September 1970: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) attempted to hijack an El Al plane bound for Israel. The airline security officers killed one and wounded another of the terrorists.
1971
15 December 1971: The Jordanian Ambassador in London and former chief of the Jordanian royal court, Zaid al Rifai, was wounded when shots were fired at his car by Black September guerrillas. |
1454_56 | 1972
19 September 1972: Dr. Arni Shachori, counsellor for agricultural affairs at the Israeli embassy in London, was killed by a letter bomb sent from Amsterdam by Black September. Theodore Kaddar was also injured. Over the next few days, searches found a further twenty letter bombs addressed to embassy staff, at the embassy and a London post office. One of the letters opened by the police contained a note from Black September. There were similar attacks around the world.
10 November 1972: Vivian Prins, head of Hennig and Co, a Holborn gem dealer, was wounded in London when a letter bomb postmarked in India exploded in his face. Police in Glasgow intercepted another twelve letter bombs addressed to Jewish targets throughout Britain. 50 similar envelopes were intercepted in India. |
1454_57 | 1973
30 December 1973: Joseph Edward Sieff, president of Marks and Spencer, survived an assassination attempt at his home in Queen's Grove in St John's Wood, London, by 'Carlos' (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez) on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
1974
24 January 1974: The PFLP claimed responsibility for explosives thrown at a Bank Hapoalim branch in Mayfair.
1977
10 April 1977: The former Prime Minister of the Yemen Arab Republic, Kadhi Abdullah al-Hagri; his wife Fatmiah; and the minister at the Yemeni embassy in London were shot and killed in their car outside the Royal Lancaster Hotel near Hyde Park. The killer has never been identified, though a report in a Palestinian newspaper named one of the hijackers of Lufthansa Flight 181 as being wanted in connection with the killing.
1978
20 August 1978: A PFLP member led an armed machine-gun attack at a coach carrying El Al crew in Mayfair. |
1454_58 | 1980
30 April to 5 May 1980: Iranian Embassy siege: Six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, London, taking 26 people hostage—mostly embassy staff, but also several visitors and a police officer. The hostage-takers were Iranian Arabs campaigning for Arab national sovereignty in Khūzestān Province. The siege ended after six days when the terrorists killed one of the hostages and the SAS stormed the building, rescuing all but one of the remaining hostages and killing five of the six terrorists. The remaining terrorist served 27 years in British prisons.
1982
3 June 1982: The Israeli Ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, was shot outside the Dorchester Hotel by three gunmen from the Abu Nidal group. The ambassador survived a three-month coma, but was paralysed and required constant medical attention until his death in 2003 as a result of the wounds. |
1454_59 | 1983
26 December 1983: On Boxing Day a bomb exploded outside a Marks & Spencer supermarket in Orchard Street, W1, seriously injuring two people. Although the IRA was initially blamed, it later emerged that the Abu Nidal Organisation was responsible.
1984
17 April 1984: Policewoman Yvonne Fletcher was killed by shots fired from the Libyan People's Bureau in St. James's Square, London at anti-Qadhafi demonstrators; Libyan diplomats were expelled after a 10-day siege.
20 April 1984: 1984 Heathrow Airport bombing: 22 were injured by a bomb in the airport baggage area. The Angry Brigade claimed responsibility, but officials blamed Libyan-linked groups. |
1454_60 | 1986
17 April 1986; Hindawi affair: a failed attempt to bomb a Heathrow plane bound for Israel.
21 August 1986: A bomb exploded in an Iranian-owned shop in West London, killing a son of the shop owner and wounding twelve people. The shop sold videotapes and literature opposed to Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iranian opposition groups blamed the Iranian government for the bombing, while the Iranian government called it a botched attempt to bomb the Iranian Embassy.
1989
3 August 1989: A man using the alias Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh accidentally killed himself and damaged two floors of a central London hotel while preparing a bomb intended to kill Salman Rushdie. |
1454_61 | 1994
26 July 1994: A large car bomb exploded outside the Israeli Embassy in London, injuring 20 people. Thirteen hours later another car bomb exploded outside Balfour House, the headquarters in London of several Jewish organisations, injuring six. Two Palestinians educated in the UK, Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami, were found guilty of "conspiracy to cause explosions" at the Old Bailey.
1997
2–13 January 1997: A series of letter bombs with postmarks from Alexandria, Egypt, were discovered at Al-Hayat newspaper bureaus in Washington, D.C.; New York City; London; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Three similar devices, also postmarked in Egypt, were found at a prison facility in Leavenworth, Kansas. Bomb disposal experts defused all the devices, except one that detonated at the Al-Hayat office in London, injuring two security guards and causing minor damage. |
1454_62 | Anarchist attacks
1894
15 February 1894: Anarchist Martial Bourdin was killed by his own bomb outside the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. There were no other casualties. Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent, published in 1907, drew on this event.
1897
26 April 1897: A bomb left by an anarchist group on a Metropolitan Railway train exploded at Aldersgate Street station (now Barbican). One person, Harry Pitts, was killed and sixty people were injured, ten seriously.
1967
3 March 1967: Six bombs damaged the buildings of diplomatic missions in London, the Hague and Turin. Responsibility for the actions was claimed by the First of May Group – a Spanish and English-based anarchist resistance movement, formed to oppose Franco's government in Spain. |
1454_63 | 1968
3 January 1968: A mortar device was found facing the Greek Embassy in London. On 27 February, the Hornsey home of Stuart Christie was raided by police led by Det. Sgt. Roy Cremer with a warrant relating to the Greek Embassy explosives, and information received that other attacks were about to take place in London. Christie was subsequently tried as one of the 'Stoke Newington Eight' and acquitted.
13 October 1968: The Imperial War Museum was attacked by an arsonist, Timothy John Daly, who claimed he was acting in protest against the exhibition of militarism to children. Damage was valued at approximately £200,000, not counting the loss of irreplaceable books and documents. On his conviction in 1969 he was sentenced to four years in prison. |
1454_64 | 1969
3 February 1969: Explosives, planted by the First of May Group were found on the premises of the Bank of Bilbao and the Bank of Spain in London.
15 March 1969: An explosion occurred at the Bank of Bilbao in London. Two anarchists, Alan Barlow and Phil Carver, were arrested immediately afterwards. In their possession was a letter claiming the action on behalf of the First of May Group.
17 August 1969: A fire bomb was planted at the Ulster Office in London.
9 October 1969: Petrol bombs were found in a left luggage locker in London. |
1454_65 | 1970
28 March 1970: A bomb was found at Waterloo station.
6 May 1970: Petrol bombs were thrown at the American Embassy, London.
10 May 1970: An incendiary device was found aboard Iberian Airliner at Heathrow. Similar devices were found in other European capitals on planes belonging to Iberia. The First of May Group were responsible.
22 May 1970: An explosive device was discovered at a new police station in Paddington. This was later claimed by the prosecution in the trial of the 'Stoke Newington Eight' to be the first action undertaken by The Angry Brigade.
May 1970 to January 1971: Firebomb attacks took place on Conservative Associations at Wembley (19 May); Brixton (10 June); Wimbledon (21 September); Hampstead (26 September) and Slough (30 January 1971), these were carried out by the Angry Brigade. |
1454_66 | June and July 1970: Firebomb attacks took place against Army targets including an Army depot in Kimber Road, SW18 (30 June); an Army recruiting office in South London (7 July); and an Army Officer Training Centre, Holborn (7 July) by the Angry Brigade.
June to October 1970: Bomb attacks were carried out by the Angry Brigade on police and judicial targets including Lambeth Court (18 June); the home of a retired policeman in Stoke Newington (10 July); the home of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Waldron (30 August); and the home of Attorney General, Sir Peter Rawlinson, in Chelsea (8 September and 8 October).
September and October 1970: Bombs were planted at Barclays Bank branches at Heathrow (26 September) and Stoke Newington (26 October) by the Angry Brigade.
20 November 1970: A bomb was planted by the Angry Brigade which exploded near a BBC van on the evening of the Miss World contest. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.