History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

This is the story of two women who lived in Finchley Road and who made headlines in the early years of aviation. Amy Johnson is the best-known but Grace Drummond-Hay also had a very interesting career. Lady Grace Drummond-Hay In 1929 Lady Grace Drummond-Hay was the first woman to fly round the world in a Zeppelin airship. Born Grace Marguerite Lethbridge in Toxteth Liverpool on 12 Sept 1895 , she was brought up in the West Hampstead area. Her father Sidney Thomas Lethbridge was the managing director and later chairman of Spratt’s, the firm that made dog biscuits and animal food. The Lethbridge family lived at several local addresses; 28 Kingdon Road (1901 to at least 1904), 11 Lydford Road off Willesden Lane (1911), and then at 14 Avenue Mansions, Finchley Road from about 1918 until Sidney ’s death there in 1937.  Lady Drummond Hay In Hampstead on 9 June 1920 aged 25, Grace Lethbridge married the diplomat Sir Robert Hay Drummond-Hay, who was nearly 50 years ...

This is the little-known story about the controversial president of Malawi and his time in Kilburn when he lived with his mistress and her husband. Hastings Kamuzu Banda was born about 1898 in a small village in Nyasaland to a poor family. After his initial education from African teachers of the Livingstonia Mission of the Free Church of Scotland, he went to Rhodesia and then South Africa . He worked as a miner and then a clerk at the Witwatersrand deep mine. There he met black American members of the African Methodist Episcopal church , which he joined in 1922. The leader of the church, Bishop Vernon , was so impressed by the young man that he agreed to sponsor his education in America. In 1925 Banda travelled to Ohio where he completed his high school education. Then he went to the universities of Indiana and Chicago and obtained a degree in history and political science in 1931. He graduated as doctor of medicine in 1937 in Nashville, Tennessee. Banda came to Brit...

Esmond Road is a short, quiet, street on the Brent side of the Kilburn High Road near Paddington Cemetery .  On Tuesday 6 November 1894 , the top floor of Number 48 was the home of Alice and James Simms and their young children. About 11.15 that morning Mrs Simms opened the front door to William Carter who forced his way upstairs.  Soon afterwards, the landlady Mrs Mary Bates was talking to a neighbour when they heard shots. As it was the morning after bonfire night, they weren’t alarmed, thinking it was just children letting off fireworks. But then they heard the faint cry of ‘Murder!’ and they saw Alice Simms on the landing covered in blood.  Mary stopped a man on the road and said something terrible had happened and could he please help. He went upstairs and saw William Carter lying on the floor. PC George Allen X334 arrived soon after to find William Carter was dead with a revolver in his hand. He had shot Alice , intending to kill her and then shot ...