History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

The Bon Marche was a large draper’s shop situated between the Old Bell and the Black Lion in Kilburn High Road. Today the site has been demolished and redeveloped. William Roper was born in 1839 in Harkstead, a small village in Suffolk, the son of a farmer. He became a draper and moved to London, where he married Stephanie (Fannie) Delbart on 10 Sept 1864 at St Marylebone Church. She was a dressmaker from France and her father Alphonse Delbart, was a perfumer. Fannie lived in St Georges Hanover Square, and in 1869 as Madame Roper she opened a dress shop at 31 Somerset Street. This was a very fashionable area of London near Portman Square and today it lies under Selfridges. At the same time William Roper opened a drapers in Kilburn, probably using inheritance money from his father who had died at Harkstead in 1864. Beginning with just one small shop, over time William expanded until he had Nos. 36, 36a and 40 Kilburn High Road. Business was good, and by 1881 there were 31 staff livi...

I had never heard of the pig singing competition until I found this amusing story.  In July 1896 Mr CF Rowley of Lillie Road Fulham appeared at the Harlesden Police Court. He had been summoned by Sir Richard Nicholson, the clerk to the Middlesex County Council (MCC). Rowley who said he was an auctioneer, was charged with having set up a marquee tent at Tooley’s cricket field in the Harrow Road at Willesden, without obtaining a 5-shilling music licence. He was a ‘cheap jack’ who travelled around holding auctions six nights a week. The large canvas tent could hold between 1,500 to 2,000 people and was lit by gas which ran up the central poles. At one end was a caravan which was made into a platform for the auctions and entertainment. To attract people who were charged 3d admission, Rowley advertised a Grand Baby show where the prize was a ‘silver-plated tea and coffee set for the mother of the finest baby under 12 months old.’ Men could enter the comic pig singing competition. They h...

The nuclear physicist and peace activist, Joseph Rotblat, lived in West Hampstead for over 50 years. Joseph Rotblat was born in November 1908 in Warsaw the eldest of five children. His father Zygmunt Rotblat owned a large haulage company specialising in delivering newsprint paper. His earliest years were spent in comfort, but the First World War brought ruin to his father’s firm. The business slumped and the horses were requisitioned for the Army, and the family slipped into poverty. Rotblat recalled that at one point they were reduced to eating frozen potatoes and distilling and selling illegal vodka. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to an electrician. But after a few months he set up his own electrical repair business. He became interested in science and attended evening classes at the Free University of Poland to take a degree in physics. After graduating with a master’s degree in 1932 Rotblat obtained a post as research assistant with Prof. Ludwik Wertenstein at the Radiol...