King George V visits Cricklewood

In the middle of WWI large numbers of servicemen were returning home with permanent injuries. In Manchester Henry Lesser Rothbard an India Rubber manufacturer, was disturbed because so many men could not get work. He wrote to hundreds of employers across the country and then sent a pamphlet to Parliament in 1915. He suggested a scheme in which every company with more than 10 employees, should ensure that no less than 5% of the workforce were disabled ex-servicemen. He wanted royal patronage for the idea which would be called The King’s National Roll Scheme (KNRS). Every business who took part would be able to use the King’s Seal on their office stationary. Although some interest was shown the scheme was not implemented. In 1917 a Rothbard Parliamentary Committee was set up to assess the feasibility of the scheme. By Xmas 1918 over 500,000 men had been discharged with permanent disabilities. In May 1919 about 38,000 had registered at employment exchanges and the scheme looked more appealing. A new Minister of Labour TJ McNamara, pressed for the introduction of the KNRS and it was launched on 15 September 1919 – four years after Rothbard had suggested it. It was a voluntary scheme, and with royal support and lots of publicity it was very successful.

It included an Industrial Training Scheme under which the Ministry of Labour commandeered industrial buildings, munition factories and other sites – there were a total of 52 factories and 252 smaller training centres. One of the larger factories which opened in 1920, was at Nos. 255, 257 and 259 Cricklewood Broadway, near the corner with Mora Road.

On 7 June 1920 King George V and Queen Mary visited the Cricklewood factory. There were 370 disabled ex-service men in training. A staff of 43 instructors delivered classes in plumbing, painting and decorating, carpentry and bricklaying etc. The photo shows the King trying his hand at bricklaying.

British Caudron factory from Mark Amies ‘Flying Up the Edgware Road’ (Brent Archives)

The building had previously been the British Caudron aeroplane factory. The Ministry of Labour Training Centre was here from 1920 until 1927 when Rolls Razor took over. They diversified under John Bloom and made washing machines in Cricklewood. Bloom controversially created the ‘Washing Machine Wars’ of 1962–1964 when he drastically reduced prices by direct sales that cut out the retailers who complained about unfair practises. His machines were about half the price of those from the shops. But in July 1964 his company suddenly went into voluntary liquidation which raised questions in Parliament, and the factory was closed.

Comments

False Arrest: the Allum and Hislop Case

Trinidadian Desmond Allum came to London to study law in 1958. He worked in hotel kitchens and the Post Office and studied law at night. He qualified and was called to the Bar in the summer of 1962 and then got a job with the Inland Revenue. In 1964 and 1965 he lived at 116 Greencroft Gardens in West Hampstead. His friend George Hislop was born in Tobago. He played cricket for Trinidad and represented the West Indies at the Empire Games held in Cardiff in 1958. The following year he came to London to train as a teacher. In September 1962 he started work as a PE teacher at the Hillcroft Secondary School in Tooting Bec. The Incident On the evening of 31 January 1963 Allum and Hislop had visited friends at 351b Finchley Road (now redeveloped as part of the JW3 Centre). They left and were walking down Finchley Road towards the underground station on their way to Balham. At 9.25pm they were stopped and questioned by two plain clothes detectives who asked them to turn out their po...

Kilburn National Club

This popular music venue was at 234 Kilburn High Road, on the corner of Messina Avenue. Many famous musicians including Johnny Cash and David Bowie played there. We look at the original building which was the Grange Cinema, and what happened when the National closed and was taken over by two different church groups. Grange Cinema The Grange was a large mansion standing in grounds of nine and a half acres and with a frontage to Kilburn High Road. It was the home of Ada Peters the widow of a wealthy coach builder who made coaches for Queen Victoria . Following Ada ’s death in 1910, the property was sold. The new owner was Oswald Stoll, a major name in the entertainment world who had already built the London Coliseum in St Martin ’s Lane, near Leicester Square . Stoll wanted to erect another Coliseum theatre in Kilburn. In fact, progress overtook him and instead of a theatre, the 2,028 seat Grange cinema opened on 30 July 1914 . This remained the biggest cinema in Kilburn until th...

Smith’s Crisps

This is the story of how Frank Smith and his friend Jim Viney, began in a small way in Cricklewood and built the large and successful company of Smith’s Crisps. Early years Frank was born in 1875, in Hackney. His parents had left their native Suffolk by the mid-1860s for London, where his father ran a fruiterer and florist business. By 1881 the family were living over their corner shop at 128 Stoke Newington High Street, moving to Kingsland Road by 1891. Frank started working when he was 10-years old and went with his father to Covent Garden each morning to buy produce for their shop. Frank married Jessie Minnie Ramplin in Southwark in 1902. The couple and their six-year old daughter Laura were living in Mona Road Deptford in 1911, when Frank gave his occupation as ‘commercial traveller, confectionery’. Soon after this he went to work for a wholesale grocer by the name of Carter, in Smithfield. Carter had a side-line making potato crisps and Frank saw great potential in the product and...

History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Search This Blog