History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

This is a strange story from 1909. On the afternoon of 9 September, seventeen year old Percy Day who worked locally as a clerk for the Midland Railway, was walking with three friends along the Edgware Road in Cricklewood. They were chatting about football and had just reached the junction with Oxgate Lane (near today’s Wing Yip Chinese superstore) when a cyclist passed them.  A cyclist from the 1900s (Getty Images) He got off his bike, reached into his jacket pocket pulled out a revolver and without warning, fired at the men hitting Percy in the arm. The assailant got back on his bike and cycled off rapidly in the direction of Cricklewood. Fortunately, Percy was not badly wounded and jumped on one of the new electric trams and pursued the cyclist. Cricklewood tram c.1906 When they reached The Crown Cricklewood, the conductor told a policeman on point duty what had happened. Percy and the PC boarded a motor bus and chased after the cyclist, overtaking him in Kilburn and arresting ...