Wilkinson's lemonade factory shelter, North Shields
3 May 1941 · North Shields, Tyne and Wear
View this record on the map →- Date
- 3 May 1941
- Record type
- Historic bombing site
- Bomb type
- HE
- Location
- North Shields, Tyne and Wear
- Position accuracy
- Confirmed event, street-derived point (the site has been redeveloped)
What happened
A single bomb scored a direct hit on W. A. Wilkinson's lemonade factory at the corner of King Street and George Street at 11.12pm, collapsing the unreinforced ceiling of the basement shelter and bringing bottling machinery and the upper floors down onto the people below.
Casualty note
Sources give 105 or 107. The Tyne and Wear Historic Environment Record gives 105 killed, 41 of them children; the North Shields 173 project gives 107 of the 192 people present, the figure used for the 2016 memorial.
Also worth knowing
The shelter had been fitted with bunk beds for up to 210. ARP warden Ellen Lee, herself badly burned, pulled 32 people from the wreckage. The Tyne and Wear HER describes it as the worst bombing incident in this part of the country during the war.