Died: Brook Hotel, Shooter’s Hill Road.
Address / Local links: 15 Lovel Avenue, Welling
Family / Relatives: Wife of Reginald Charles James Jacobs of Welling
“On Saturday 11th November 1944 at just after 6.30pm, the drinkers in the Brook Hotel on Shooters Hill Road, would have been settling down for a relaxing evening’s drinking, when suddenly everything familiar was obliterated. The adjacent Brook Hospital was damaged and apart from the casualties in the pub, a passing 89 bus was also destroyed, thus adding to the death toll. When the rescuers had finished their work, it was found that 29 people had perished’.
A V2 rocket had struck the building…One of those killed there was 41 year old Margaret Charlotte Jacobs, a housewife of 15 Lovel Avenue, Welling .
Margaret had been born on 26th of June 1903, the daughter of Charles Cox. He had died before 1930, the year Margaret married to Reginald Charles James Jacobs a general labourer – the wedding took place on 18th October 1930 at Holy Trinity, Selhurst, in south London.
By the outbreak of war, the 1939 Register finds the Jacobs living in Lovel Avenue, with Reginald listed as a ‘Semi Skilled M/C Operator’.
Very little more is known about the family – Reginald died on new years’ eve in 1979 and is buried in Bexleyheath Cemetery. Margaret had been buried at St. Michael’s on 17th November 1944.
We will probably never know why Charlotte was in the Brook Hotel that fateful late afternoon…the Brook Hotel, a one time Beasley’s Brewery outlet, was rebuilt after the war, and after permanently closing became the site of a supermarket.
But we do have a first hand account of the tragedy that day the V2 hit; In 1944 Alan Williams was 14, and one of the first on the scene. He gives the following account of the day the pub was hit.
“I was on a tram on Shooters Hill, when I heard an explosion and ran down the road just in time
to see a No 89 bus explode,” he says. “The pub had been hit by the missile and the bus was
passing and caught fire.”
Williams was pressed into service. “The fire officer called for silence so we could listen for
people calling for help and we heard somebody,” he says. “The firemen were too big to go down,
so they lowered me. I found a body still breathing and helped them pull it back up. We got to the
top and the gas blew up beneath us – I never got out of a bombsite so quickly.”
He’d rescued a girl who had been playing with the publican’s daughter. “She lived in the same
road as me, and her father was a high-ranking policeman,” says Williams. “He came to see us –
my mother thought I’d been in trouble again!” In the carnage, 29 died but the pub was rebuilt
immediately. “The pub was a lovely old building,” says Williams. “It was close to where soldiers
were billeted so they rebuilt it before the end of the war.” Williams passes such bombsites
frequently. “I still live in the area and I bow my head as I go past,” he says. “I can still see that 89
bus exploding. I always thought it was strange that there was never an explanation of what
happened to these places. I thought they should have put up plaques. It’s always a puzzle why it
didn’t happen, maybe they just wanted to forget.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
If anyone is able to add any extra information, provide more family details, or suggest any corrections, please let us know – also, if anyone has any more photos of this individual listed on our memorials, please get in touch. Thank you.
Commemorated
- St. Michael’s East Wickham Church Memorial Tablet
- Greenwich Metropolitan Borough Civilian Records
This story has been researched by volunteers. We have taken every effort to ensure its accuracy. If you are related to Margaret Charlotte Jacobs, or if you have any further information, please do get in touch.