London the Bastion of Liberty

Reduced version of Kerry Lee’s view of triumphant London in a postwar world.

This pictorial view of London is one of several pictorial maps Kerry Lee created to promote tourism in the United Kingdom after WWII. During the war, Lee was assigned to the Air Ministry, where he made drawing of German fighter aircraft to aid in development of strategy. That attention to detail would serve him well when he created this map of London, the Bastion of Liberty, c. 1950.

Published by Pictorial Maps Ltd. and printed by Chromoworks, this map was sponsored by the short-lived Travel Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and originally published in 1947. It was updated by Lee for the 1951 Festival of Britain and celebrates the city’s wartime struggle, and ultimate success. The dense and richly illustrated image presents the architecture and inhabitants of London first and foremost, as these were the cornerstones of British resistance to the German blitz. Homage to the Civil Defense Service is paid under the city’s coats of arms at the top of the page, and an inset with Churchill’s famous quote drives home the stoic attitude of Londoners in those dark times – “We would rather see London in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.”