History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

In July 1907 the Daily Express ran a series of front page articles about a woman in West Hampstead who they dubbed the ‘Queen of Madagascar’. She was Elizabeth Horne who had lived with her husband Frederick at 18 Greencroft Gardens since the late 1880s. Elizabeth was the daughter of Alexander Cowie, a Scotsman who had opened a boys’ school in Box Villa, Marlborough Road St. John’s Wood in 1829. They were a very religious family and her brother William became the Archbishop of Auckland in New Zealand . Elizabeth was born in 1837 and she married Frederick Warlters Horne in Hampstead in 1879. Born in Norwood in 1854, Frederick worked in a merchant firm set up by his father who traded goods with Spain and Portugal . The 1907 Exposé The Daily Express said that, ‘As a result of an exhaustive inquiry made by a special representative of the Express, the public are now placed for the first time in possession of the full facts’. The articles revealed a ‘secret syndicate’ where M...

What began as a prank in the run up to Guy Fawkes Night, ended in tragedy a few minutes before midnight on 4 th November in 1961.   Alpha House, 1961 Thirty-seven year old Fred Burtenshaw had been the caretaker at Alpha House in Canterbury Road, South Kilburn, for over ten years. He had spent much of that evening trying to prevent youngsters from causing damage and setting off fireworks. Fred was relaxing in his armchair and watching television when suddenly there was a loud explosion and the window behind him shattered. A bomb inside an old car dynamo had been placed outside on the window sill and a piece of the casing hit Fred on the back of the head. His wife, who had been putting their son to bed, heard a terrifically loud bang and ran downstairs to see what had happened. She said: I found the lounge in darkness. Clouds of smoke and dust filled the whole room.  At first I couldn’t see, but then I found Fred sitting still on the settee. I shouted to him,...