Henry Charles Beck (
Leyton,
London, 4 June 1902 – 18 September 1974), known as
Harry Beck, was an English
technical draughtsman best known for creating the present
London Underground Tube map in 1931. Beck drew up the diagram in his spare time while working as an engineering draftsman at the London Underground Signals Office. London Underground was initially sceptical of Beck's radical proposal, an uncommissioned spare-time project, but tentatively introduced it to the public in a small pamphlet in 1933. It was immediately popular, and the Underground has used
topological maps to illustrate the network ever since.