Barnes and Cole, the Kilburn boys who made good

The building at the heart of this story is today’s Kingsgate Workshops at Nos.110-116 Kingsgate Road in Kilburn. It was constructed about 1887 by John Allen and Sons who were local builders of many of the houses in the area. When they moved across the High Road to a site that later became the State Cinema, the building in Kingsgate Road was taken over by Robert Charles Barnes in 1894.

Originally a greengrocer by trade, he moved from Marylebone to Kilburn in the mid-1850s, opening a shop at 7 St George’s Terrace (which was later re-numbered as 240 Belsize Road). During the 1870s, Robert changed career and gave his job in the 1881 census as that of a furniture van proprietor, employing five men. His office was at No.199 Belsize Road. The business expanded, and by 1891 Barnes also had premises at 251–255 Kilburn High Road and 252–254 Belsize Road. In 1894 Barnes converted the large Kingsgate Road premises into a depository, where people paid to store their furniture and other household goods during a house move.

His great-grandson Cecil Barnes (born in 1902), formed Barnes and Cole, a sheet metal company, with his friends Benjamin Cole and James Kirby. By 1939 they were based in the Kingsgate Road building.

Benny Cole’s parents were William and Mary Cole. His father was a bus driver, and Ben was born on 10 May 1912 in Paddington. During WWI the family came to Kilburn and lived at 21 Cotleigh Road. Jim Kirby was born in 1912, the son of a road sweeper.

In 1939 Benny Cole and his family were sharing a house at 30 Braemar Gardens Hendon with Jim Kirby and his wife. Cecil Barnes and his wife were living at 100 Cotswold Gardens, Hendon.

Benny Cole went to Kingsgate School and before school began, he earned money to supplement the meager family budget by washing steps, carrying coal from cellars and polishing brasses in the large houses in Hampstead. He left school aged 14 at the time of the General Strike in 1926 and did his bit for the workers by selling the Daily Herald at Kilburn Bridge. There were two million unemployed and was difficult to get work after leaving school. Benny was lucky and found a job at a St John’s Wood metalworking and blacksmith company. 

After 10 years with different engineering firms he decided to set up his own welding and car repair firm. In 1936 a sign for ‘B. Cole, Crash Repair Specialists’ went up outside a shed in Kingsgate Road. He persuaded a garage to send him work and in two years he had amassed a working capital of £100. He joined up with Cecil Barnes and ‘Barnes and Cole’ was born. The third member of the group was Jim Kirby who lived at 101 Kingsgate Road.

Benny, Cecil and Jim worked hard and conscientiously, and earned the trust of insurance firms who sent them work from car accidents. Business began to look up, but then WWII started. Ben Cole enlisted in the RAF and was sent to India and South East Asia. Cecil Barnes went into the (A.F.S) the auxiliary fire service. Jim Kirby was left to carry on doing metal work under Government contracts. When the War ended Barnes and Cole returned to car repair work. 
But as the sheet metal work increased, the business outgrew the Kingsgate Road site, so they acquired a garage at 77 St Paul’s Avenue Willesden. Here, in addition to the repair work and sheet metal finishing, they added the sale of petrol. 

Then in 1954 Ben spotted a vacant site on the Kingsbury Circle at the junction of Kenton Road and Honeypot Lane. Here ‘Cole and Kirby’ built a large petrol filling station with offices attached. Business was very good, and four years later they built an extension with a showroom for the sale of cars.

1969 Advert for 584, Cole & Kirby at Kingsbury Circle

The various branches became part of the ‘584 Group’ of companies which by 1960 had over a hundred employees and a turnover of more than half a million pounds, which is equivalent to about £12.5M today. 

Benny, the wiry, restless, perky man of 5ft 6, then chief of the 584 Group, could say in his North London accent,
‘Blimey, Chiefy, who’d a-thought it!’ He and his Kilburn friends had really made it good.

Photo by Jean Smith

Benjamin Cole died in 1972 in Harrow Weald leaving £85,859 (worth about £1,2M today). Cecil Barnes died in 1975 on the Isle of Wight with an estate of £10,819 (worth about £89,100 today), and James Kirby died in 1988 in Tring Herts leaving £70,000 (equivalent to about £184,000 today).

‘Barnes and Cole’ left Kingsgate Road in 1975 and the following year the building was bought by Camden Council. It remained empty until it was opened as Kingsgate Workshops in January 1978 with studios for artists and craftspeople.

Kingsgate Artists at the 30 years anniversary (2008)