History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Pepper’s Ghost was a famous visual illusion which astonished the Victorian public before the invention of cinema. It was created by John Henry Pepper and Henry Dircks and the G host first appeared at the Royal Polytechnic Institution on 24 December 1858. The link to our area is that John Henry Pepper lived at two addresses in Kilburn from 1856 to about 1871. He was born on 21 June 1821 at 7 Great Queen Street Holborn, the son of Charles Bailey Pepper, a civil engineer. John Henry was educated at King’s College School and then became a pupil of the chemist John Thomas Cooper at the Russell Institution. In 1840, at age of 19 he was appointed assistant lecturer at the Granger School of Medicine. Five years later he married Mary Ann Benwell. They had no children of their own, but adopted Mary’s nephew William Henry Welsh, who worked with Pepper as his assistant. John Henry Pepper, c1870   Pepper was a very good speaker, and in 1847 he gave his first lecture at the R...

The Blue Lamp, directed by Basil Dearden, was a classic Ealing Studios film released in 1950. The locations shots were filmed in the Edgware Road and the action takes place around the famous 'Met' Music Hall. Film poster for the Blue Lamp In it, Jack Warner plays a London policeman who is shot by a young criminal portrayed by Dirk Bogarde. The story is by Ted Willis and Jan Read. The script by ex-policeman T.E.B ‘Tibby’ Clarke lends the film a sense of authenticity and captures a snapshot of the post-war destabilisation of the family and the rise of the young delinquent that saw an increase in violent crime.   Peggy Evans and Dirk Bogarde in The Blue Lamp For more information see the link: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/447704/index.html Here is a film clip where Dick Bogarde shoots Jack Warner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYs6X5g-20c&list=PLtWb51h0f90uKz28dKlo270nUwwNqGR8W&index=2 There is a link to West Hampstead because ...