In 1973, Sean Plunkett (1948-2023) was riding the London Underground during Rush Hour. His portraits of the city have been published by Café Royal Books.
After studying photography at Ealing College, Sean Plunkett worked in mines in Australia and then as a builder in the UK. None of his pictures had ever been published. As Cafe Royal notes, Sean never got to them into print:
Sean Plunkett (1948) submitted several series from his archive of 1970s work that he made in the UK and overseas. We worked through the sets and decided on which titles would be released, and roughly when. As the books reached proof stage, we received sad news from Sean’s family that he’d died in early 2023.
The first lines on the London Underground lines were constructed using “cut and cover” – you dig a trench, lay the line and cover it up. The first deep Tube line made by tunnelling was the City & South London Line, which opened in 1890. It now forms part of the Northern Line. By the time Harry Beck designed his map of the Tube network in 1935, the service ran to seven lines. That one sublime map is now a confusing mishmash of 20 lines – 11 Underground and 9 Overground.
You can buy Sean’s work at Cafe Royal.
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