When Selfridge came to Kilburn

On the 12 March 1910 Gordon Selfridge gave a talk to the boys of Kilburn Grammar School. Speaking on ‘Business as a Life’s Work’, he said that England was now in serious competition with the other great commercial nations of the world and they should be pushing in commerce as in any other form of activity. There were certain principles that young men going into business needed to know. These were energy, knowledge of the business, and absolute integrity. He urged the boys, ‘to be broadminded, to be splendid, to be big, and if they could not find an opening in any one place the whole world was open to them’.

Gordon Selfridge, (Getty Images)

Gordon Selfridge had started as a stock boy in Marshall Field in Chicago. He worked his way up over 25 years to become a junior partner and a wealthy man. During his retirement, Gordon and his wife visited London in 1906, and he noticed that there was no shop to rival Marshal Fields or the great department stores of Paris. He decided to build a new store in Oxford Street which opened on 15 March 1909 and over time was expanded along Oxford Street. Selfridge lived at 17 Arlington Street, a large house off Piccadilly. In the 1911 census, he is shown there with his wife Rose and three children age 9 to 13, and 11 servants.

Selfridges, Oxford Street, 1953

Kilburn Grammar School (KGS) was founded by Rev. Bonavia Hunt, the vicar of St Paul’s Church in Kilburn Square. The school opened at No.1 Willesden Lane, off the Kilburn High Road on 10 January 1898 with 33 boys. The first headmaster was a 30-year old Welshman called Evan Evans. As the school expanded, a year later it moved to a large house at 28 Cavendish Road, while the new school was being built in Salusbury Road Kilburn. The permanent site was opened in July 1900.

Evan Evans with a class of boys, 1899

In May 1908 an inspection by the University of London was highly critical of Evans’ leadership and found that he did not have the support of his colleagues. He ruled boys by the threat of heavy punishment and the timetable and curriculum showed his lack of organization. A second inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectors in December confirmed the findings of lack of leadership and also found poor teaching. The inspectors said that Evans was obstinate, arrogant, and unaware of his own limitations. A follow-up visit by HMI in May 1909 found no improvement. The University of London declined to recognize the KGS leaving school certificate. Then in July the Middlesex School Board said they were going to refuse their grant unless Evans was dismissed.

In September 1909, despite support from most of the Governors, Evans was asked to leave, and he complied. This produced several letters to the Kilburn Times from parents and locals supporting Evans.

One hundred and fifty-three applications for the job were received and 11 people were short listed and interviewed. Wilfred Bonavia Hunt was appointed the next headmaster. He was the eldest son of Rev. Bonavia Hunt and he had been the second master, or deputy head at KGS since 1905, and he had fully supported Evan Evans. At his first meeting with the governors, he asked for the removal of four of the five full-time assistant teachers for what he called ‘their attitude of treachery’. He said he could not carry on without the change he requested – the governors agreed, and the four teachers left. To show that he was widening the curriculum to include commerce, in 1910 Hunt invited Gordon Selfridge to give a talk to the 150 boys. He also asked the local Kilburn department store owner B.B. Evans (another Welshman but no relation to Evan Evans), to give the next talk.

W.B. Hunt led the school successfully until he retired on the grounds of ill-health in 1925.

There is a downloadable history of KGS by Richard E. Brock who was a pupil from 1927 to 1935 here:

https://kgsoba.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/HISTORY-OF-THE-SCHOOL-2.pdf

Islamia School, Salusbury Road, 2019

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History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

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