History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Most people who live here know the local landmark the Kilburn State and its 120 feet tower. When it opened in December 1937 as the Gaumont State, it was the largest purpose built cinema in Europe with 4,004 seats. Today it is a Grade II* listed building. Kilburn State, 2015, (Dick Weindling) What was there before the cinema was built?  Stand and Deliver! Originally there was a large house on the site called The Elms, which was home to a number of wealthy people. These included the widower John Ebbers who moved in with his two daughters in 1832. He was a publisher in Old Bond Street and the manager of the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket (which is now Her Majesty’s Theatre). In 1826 he met a young writer called William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882) who had moved to London from Manchester . It was an eventful year for Ainsworth; Ebbers published his first novel ‘Sir John Chiverton’ and he married Ann Frances or ‘Fanny’, Ebbers’ youngest daughter. While liv...

Grace Maud Babb was born in Plaistow West Ham in 1896, the daughter of a boilermaker. In the June quarter of 1915 she married Charles Robert Ewbank Edmundson. This was a marriage of different classes as he was the son of a wealthy solicitor living in Nutwith House, Masham Yorkshire, who was clerk to various councils and organisations. Grace and Charles’ daughter Grace Elizabeth was born on 13 September 1915 in Hitchen, so Grace may have been pregnant when they married.   Charles was educated at Asygarth School and Marlborough College and in 1913 he became a solicitor in his father’s office. When War broke out he joined the York and Lancaster Regiment where he became a Captain in July 1915 and was sent to the Front on 27 August. Aged 24, Charles died on 1 July 1916 , the first day of the battle of Somme . This was the worst day in the history of the British Army when 57,470 men were injured, of whom 19,240 died. He is buried in the Adanac Military Cemetery in Miraumont...

It was May 1942 and London was in the middle of the War, when Pauline Barker was murdered at 184 Belsize Road . The story did not receive much attention in the press. Here we use the Metropolitan Police files from the National Archives to look at the stories of the main participants in this sad crime. The house has since been demolished as part of the Council redevelopment in the area. Pauline Barker was born in Islington in 1899, the daughter of Frederick Charles Barker and Lydia Care. He was a solo harpist and she was a leading contralto with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, they married in London in 1898. But the marriage did not go well and Frederick left Lydia in 1910 and she sued for divorce in 1911. Frederick said in the divorce papers the reason he left her was because of: Her violent temper and ungovernable behaviour and constant and habitual use of filthy, disgusting and obscene language and constant disagreements for ten years which have rendered his married life...

This was a battle on the Western Front between the British Army, which included soldiers from the Commonwealth, and the French against the German Army. The 15 mile front was alongside the Somme River in Northern France. The battle began on 1 July 1916 and lasted 141 days until the 18 November. More than a million men were wounded or killed.  The first day was the worst in the history of the British Army when 57,470 men were injured, of whom 19,240 died. The original British Expeditionary Force of regular soldiers had suffered heavy losses in 1914 and 1915. The Army at the Somme were made up of the remaining regular soldiers, the Territorial Army and Lord Kitchener's ‘Pals’ battalions, composed of men from local towns who had answered his call to volunteer. As well as the ground troops, the battle was noticeable for the use of air power and tanks. There are various estimates of the casualties, but the general accepted figures for the numbers of wounded and dead for...