History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

In 1898, 51-years old Mrs Sands was living at 25 Anson Road Cricklewood. For some time she and her neighbours had been receiving nasty anonymous letters and parcels. This had been going on for several years but came to a head in January when she was sent a parcel containing live black beetles. She reported it to the Post Office who conducted an investigation.  Anson Road (Willesden Local History Society)     25 Anson Road, 2022   She was Elizabeth Frances Colechin, born about 1847 in Kingston Jamacia. At the time of the 1871 census, her father William was a surveyor in the War Department, living in Portsea. In 1876 Fanny had married William Gregory Sands a merchant, and they had two sons who were born in Japan. But he died four years later in Kobe , and Fanny and the boys returned to England where they first lived at 40 Perham Road in West Kensington. About 1894 she became friends with Josephine Chilcott who lived with her mother and stepfather in Fulham. Josephine was the youngest

Lena Connell was an important photographer of the women’s suffragette movement in the early 20th century. Her father Frederick Henry Connell (1839-1911) was a watchmaker specializing in high-class chronometers, before becoming a photographer. At the time of his marriage to Catherine Scrivener in July 1868 he was living at 17 Tavistock Street in Marylebone.  Lena was born as Adelin Beatrice Connell on 27 July 1875 at 29 Southampton Row where her father was working for Messrs Roblin and Sons, French Clock makers. By 1882 the family were at 41 Lorne Road in Finsbury Park. Two years later Connell had moved to 83 Kilburn High Road as a watchmaker and jeweller. He was still there in 1887.  Frederick took up photography, and in 1891 the family were living in 69 Abbey Road. The census that year shows Frederick as a photographer, with two daughters helping him: Dora, 17, was a photographic re-toucher and Adelin aged 15, was a photographic assistant.    69 Abbey Road (Dick Weindling, July 2023)

Today with the use of digital cameras and mobile phones, we take colour photography for granted. This is the story of how nearly a century ago, a pioneering invention, and a production plant in Willesden transformed photography.   The invention In 1928 at a meeting of the Professional Photographers Association, LW Oliver and WTL Becker demonstrated their new technique of making colour photographs. They said it had taken two years of research with more than 5,000 experiments. Although there was the French autochrome method which produced colour photos, it was not widely available. For over 30 years photographers had been trying without success to find a practical and simple way of reproducing colours. Oliver and Becker used a modified camera to simultaneously produce a negative using three thin films sensitive to red, blue and green. The films were superimposed and printed on white paper to produce a colour image. Importantly, multiple prints could be made of the image. It received very