History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Nellie Seymour was an attractive actress, one of many who made a living from the stage; it was a hard life, often moving with a company from town to town. If you were lucky, you found a role in a production that stayed in a theatre for a few months. One such was ‘Sergeant Brue’ by Owen Hall which premiered in London in 1904. A musical farce, the plot centres around the police sergeant of the title, who comes into £10,000 a year, on condition he remains in the force and is promoted to inspector. Nellie played Vivienne Russell, a society lady and one of the chorus .   The cast of Sergeant Brue, Nellie is seated in the centre (Marianne Colloms) The play was staged at the Strand Theatre and the Prince of Wales Theatre, running in London ’s West End until February 1905. The ladies are carrying unusual animal heads or masks which they had to wear at some point in the performance. One critic disparaged another prop, paper hoops, because the ladies were expected to jump thro...

In the late 1950s Veronica Murray, known as ‘Ronnie’, came from Londonderry to find work in London. She eventually worked as a prostitute on the streets and clubs of Soho, and in June 1958 rented a room at 58 Charteris Road in Kilburn. When Ronnie had not been seen by her friends in Soho for several days, one of them phoned her Turkish landlord Ratomir Tasic. A shocking sight awaited him as he entered her room on 19 December 1958 . Ronnie had been beaten to death and was lying across her bed. The murder squad detectives led by Superintendent Evan Davies, found that she had been hit several times on the head with an ornamental dumbbell. Some unusual circular marks were found on her body, but the fingerprints at the scene did not match any on file. The police released a photo of Veronica a few days later but this produced no suspects and the case went cold. Veronica 'Ronnie' Murray A year later on 11 October 1959 , Mrs Mabel Hill was celebrating her birthday in L...