The Radioactive House in Kilburn

In the Summer of 1972, No.41 West End Lane was demolished because of the levels of radioactivity. This is the story of what caused the radioactivity and some of the interesting people who lived in the house previously.

The large, detached house, was built in the early 1870s as ‘The Lodge’ towards the Kilburn end of West End Lane. The first person to live there in 1871 was Peter Clarkson Reed. He was a barrister who had qualified in 1859 and practised in Calcutta. He died at the house in 1876 and left £16,000 to his son John Lindsay Reed of Inner Temple, a barrister who at one time lived in Willesden.


Patrick John Benson was at ‘The Lodge’ from 1884 until his death in 1895. Benson was a ‘professor of fencing and gymnastics.’ About 1875 he opened ‘Benson’s Gymnasium and School of Arms’ in Orchard Street, Portman Square. This was a successful business, and when he died he left £21,847 (worth about £2.3M today) to his son Charles, who took over the gym. 

At the time of the 1911 census the elaborately named George Edward Vincent Sidney Cheesman was living at the West End Lane house. On the census form, which was the first one completed by the occupier themselves rather than a census enumerator, George said he was aged 48, and gave his occupation as ‘director of companies connected with the motor trade’. Twenty years earlier he was a solicitor in Red Lion Square Holborn. But in 1899 he and his partner in the company of Waddington and Cheeseman, were found to have acted unprofessionally in dealing with an estate after the death of a wealthy woman and that some cheques had gone missing. Waddington was sentenced to six years imprisonment and Cheeseman to four years for fraud, and they were both struck off the list of solicitors. 

In the 1920’s the house was owned by Edgar Hatfield and his wife Kathleen (nee Lanigan). In September 1924 the Irish actress Una O’Connor arrived in New York on the SS Leviathan. On the immigration form she gave her address as c/o Mrs Hatfield 41 West End Lane. Una O’Connor was a popular comedy actress on stage, film and TV. She generally portrayed comic wives, housekeepers and servants. Una received praise for her performances on Broadway that year. She appeared in early Hitchcock films, and in 2020 she was included in the list of the top 20 greatest Irish film actors. 

From 1935 to 1940 Eric (Erich) Glass was at the house. He was a theatre critic in Vienna and came to London with the rise of the Nazis, becoming one of Britain’s most distinguished literary agents. He died in 1995 but his company continues today in Notting Hill. 

In 1939 chemists Jacque and Kaethe Freitag came to England from Berlin. They became naturalized and anglicised their name to Friday. They had run the Radium Light Co. in Berlin and continued the business initially at 18 Quex Road Kilburn. By 1949 Jack Friday and the Radium Light Co. are shown at 41 West End Lane. 

The highly radioactive element radium was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. A few years later Sir William Crookes found that by mixing small amounts of radium with zinc sulphide it was possible to produce a radioactive paint which glowed in the dark. In 1908 von Sochocky perfected it, and it was manufactured commercially in America during WWI and the 1920s. However, it took some time to notice the negative health effects on the workers. The radium girls used fine brushes which they ‘pointed’ between their lips, and were trained to ‘lip, dip, paint’. After a few years there were cases of anaemia, their teeth fell out and some had cancer of the jaw. There were about 40 deaths. For more information see:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Radium_Girls

There is also a film about the radium girls on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KoBPHfEveA

In the basement of No.41 Jack and Kaethe employed up to six young woman to paint clock dials and key rings which glowed in the dark. The radium was imported in small phials covered by lead balls. Jack died at the house on 22 July 1959 and left £8,377 to Kaethe who continued the company. The Radium Light Co. is shown at 10 Kilburn High Road from 1963 and 1974. By 1973 Kaethe had moved from West End Lane to Flat 12, Palace Court 250 Finchley Road on the corner with Frognal. Four years later she died at the Grosvenor Nursing Home, 85-87 Fordwych Road West Hampstead. There is no record on their death certificates that the cause of death was directly related to radiation. 

No.41 West End Lane and other houses were compulsory purchased by the Greater London Council in preparation to build Stage 2 of the Kilburn Vale development. In 1972 No.41 and a few other houses were offered to Anna Bowman of the West Hampstead Housing Association to provide short-stay accommodation. But then radioactivity from the use of the radium paint was detected in No.41 and she was asked suddenly to give the keys back. Inspectors from the National Radiological Protection Board used Geiger counters and determined the radiation was not high risk, but it was unsafe for children and inadvisable for anyone to live there.


The house was demolished in the late summer of 1972, and 95 lorry loads of rubble were removed and buried 20ft deep in a GLC dump in Harefield Middlesex. The more dangerous material was sent to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell. 

Anna is seen here in a short film she produced at the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fFFa9XkqeU

Today there is no trace of the original houses which are under the Kilburn Vale estate and few people know about the radioactive house of Kilburn.

We would like to thank Anna Bowman for her help with this story.