The Kilburn Disaster of 1893: ‘A ghastly ending to a moonlight night’s scene’

The evening of Monday 24 April 1893 was pleasantly warm. Around 9pm, the moon was rising over the working-class neighbourhood around Canterbury Road, South Kilburn, where the streets and pavements were busy with friends exchanging gossip and children playing. Indoor space here was at a premium; the eight or nine roomed terrace houses were generally shared between two or three large families. The 1891 census shows over 20 residents was the norm for the houses in Peel Road. So, if the weather permitted, they preferred to spend time outdoors.

1950's OS Map showing the Sir Robert Peel pub

The Sir Robert Peel public house at the junction of Canterbury and Peel Roads was known familiarly as ‘The Peel’, a popular place for locals to socialise. As usual the landlord, Edward Pattenden was busy serving his regulars with drinks. He later told reporters, ‘We did not hear the crash as plainly as those outside.’

Sir Robert Peel (Historic England)

 

What had happened?
The crash was likened by observers to artillery fire. It was the sound of 75 yards of the roof-level parapet tearing away from the pub and four neighbouring houses in Peel Street and crashing into the street below. The coping was initially described as mortar covered brick, while a later report called it ‘stucco’ and estimated the weight around 100 tons. It smashed front steps, cascading onto the pavement and roadway. People directly below had no chance of surviving, while the impact caused the debris to break up and injure bystanders some distance away.

There had been no warning of the collapse, in fact the pub had only recently had its coping repaired. The eyewitness reports differ slightly: one said the coping first broke away in Peel Street and the break moved towards the pub, another said the pub’s coping was the first to detach. A third version said it parted company at the join between the pub and the next-door house and collapsed in each direction.

Drawing of the scene, the Sir Robert Peel pub is on the right

 

The fatalities
There were loud shrieks and cries from those in the street, as the dust cloud slowly cleared to reveal the devastation. In the confusion it was thought no one had been killed but when Henry Hooper, a young man who had been woken by the noise, began removing rubble he discovered three bodies: Ellen Aldridge (age 30) and her four-month old son William, who was being cared for by her friend Emma Williamson, the third victim (37).

Ellen lived nearby in Granville (formerly Pembroke) Road while Emma’s home was right next door to the pub, at No.2 Peel Road. In 1891 George and Emma and their six children were occupying three of nine rooms in the property. George gave his occupation as a pointer of brickwork. When the coping fell, Emma was at the front door of No.2, calling in her children and talking to Ellen who was nursing William. Emma and William were killed outright, Ellen died a short while after. Emma took the full impact of the falling masonry and the newspapers, as was the custom of the time, graphically described the three victims’ appalling injuries.

PC Cairns had just walked around the corner when he heard the crash and turned to see the coping fall. He ran back to help Henry and others frantically try and clear the rubble from those buried beneath. It was a hopeless task and attention turned to helping the injured. Many were suffering from head and upper body wounds. Those who were able, walked or were taken in ambulances to local chemists and dispensaries, while the most serious casualties were conveyed to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. Local tradesman Albert Crook took some in his horse and trap. Saxby and Farmer, the large railway signalling works company on nearby Canterbury Road, supplied an ambulance. The noise attracted a huge number of people and the Kilburn police, 35 men in all, were called in, to control the ever-growing crowd and keep people well away from the houses and pub. It was feared the Peel might collapse or more coping would fall.

George Aldridge had gone to work that morning at 7am, returning around 6pm. Finding his wife was out, he went to bed and was fast asleep when friends hammered on his front door to give him the grim news. George Williamson last saw Emma alive just five minutes before the coping fell, when she was standing on the steps talking to Ellen.

Emma’s sister learned about the tragedy the next morning from her milkman. She told a reporter she couldn’t believe what had happened. Only recently she had praised her sister for being a such good person, taking in an orphan when she already had six children of her own. The ‘orphan’ was baby William Aldridge. The Aldridges’ are described in the baptism records of St Augustine’s Kilburn as his parents, but it appears William was their adopted child who was being cared for by Emma.  

The injured
We have not been able to trace all the injured persons. The majority were locals and the total number of persons hurt was far greater than reported, as shown by the large number of people visiting local chemists to have their injuries treated. 

Three of Emma’s children were hit by masonry: William (17) Ernest (10) and Beatrice (6); they were crossing the road, obeying her instruction to come indoors. The worst case involved William, whose leg was so badly damaged that doctors decided on amputation. Ernest also had leg injuries and Beatrice, cuts to her head. Eva Manners (13) who lived with her parents at No.8 Peel Road, was seriously hurt. Crush injuries suffered by Charles James, (17) who lived round the corner at 85 Granville Road, resulted in toes being amputated while Mrs Withey who lived in the same street, had a badly cut arm.

It could have been even worse: a barrel organ had been playing outside the Peel, attracting a large crowd that moved on only a few minutes before the coping fell into the street where they had been standing.

The funerals
It was estimated over 2,000 Kilburn residents including officials from local labourers’ unions, took part in the funeral procession or were present at Paddington Cemetery. James Crook & Sons, undertakers of 259 Kilburn High Road, arranged the burials. The bodies were transported from the mortuary to the victims' homes the night before, and around 4pm on Saturday afternoon, the solemn procession started from Peel Road, up Cambridge Road and along the High Road to the cemetery in Willesden Lane. A relative had requested that no band should accompany the hearses.

What immediate action was taken?
The neighbourhood was crowded with sightseers all that week. The Willesden Local Board surveyor Claude Robson was on the scene the evening of the collapse and the remaining coping was tested. The parapet was removed from pub later that week and its cellar needed repairing after being damaged by falling rubble. It was reported that residents feared walking by houses that had similarly heavy copings, which were a feature of many South Kilburn properties. Scaffolding appeared in streets as owners of at least 50 houses were ordered to do repairs and dangerous parapets were demolished. A ‘Peel Road Disaster and Relief Fund’ was opened for the benefit of the bereaved families.  

Who was to blame?
The official answer is no-one. But in the opinion of the inquest jury, one person could have averted the disaster.

James Tovey Rowe was called to give evidence. He owned Nos.2-12 Peel Road and the pub, which he had built in 1864. He held the original lease of The Sir Robert Peel and sublet the pub on a repairing lease but admitted that he was ultimately responsible for its upkeep.

Rowe’s rents in Peel Road were collected by Barnabas Bone who also carried out repairs, including re-slating the houses the previous year. But then Mr Bone made an amazing statement. He told the coroner he had seen the parapet of the pub was leaning over, with an extensive crack extending into the brickwork of No.2 Peel Road. This confirmed George Williamson’s evidence, that he’d informed the pub landlord about part of the Peel cornice and parapet which was bulging, but nothing had been done. Bone said he had repaired the coping between the pub and No.2 using cement rather than mortar. When questioned further, Bone said No, he hadn’t told anyone about the crack, even though the parapet needed rebuilding, because ‘it did not concern him.’ He never mentioned it to the authorities or Mr Rowe, which given his connection with Rowe, appears inexplicable. Bone’s conclusion was that the fall of the Sir Robert Peel parapet dragged down the parapet in Peel Road. Surveyor Robson agreed.

The jury’s verdict was, ‘The deceased came by their deaths through the fall of the parapet of the houses in Peel-road. They considered Mr Bone, being a practical man, is deserving of the blame in not reporting the defect which he saw to the proper authority.’ Barnabas Bone was censured severely by the coroner, but in the end, that was all he could do.

What happened to the people involved after the fall?
The ‘Peel Road Fund’ raised a total of £385 5s 7d. Initial pay outs were for funerals, hardship, and medical expenses, including recuperating after injuries, amounting to close on £100.00. Specific individuals were awarded cash amounts: the largest went to William Williamson (£100, worth £11,500 today); Eva Manners received £30 and Charles James £10 with cash amounts of £30 each invested for Ellen Aldridge’s son Richard, and two more (unnamed) children of Emma Williamson. The need to find a home for Beatrice Aldridge delayed the drawing up of the final balance sheet. In the event, the Trustees agreed to pay £40 to place her in the local Mount Hermon Orphanage where she would be educated and trained for a job in service. A final balance of £2 5 6d remained.

Many of the names were common at the time which has made them hard to track in subsequent years. However, we managed to trace members of the Williamson family as far as 1956. Almost all those we found chose to stay in or close to South Kilburn and followed the same trade throughout their working lives.

Now living at 35 Percy Road with new partner Margaret, in 1901 George Williamson was still working as a bricklayer, his trade until he retired. His 18-year-old daughter Beatrice was working in a laundry, and son Ernest (16) was a housepainter. George, now a widower, was living at 8 Granville Road in 1939. He died later that year aged 83.

George’s son William survived his severe injury. He was living near his father at 99 Denmark Road in 1901; he and wife Emily, a laundry worker, were sharing two rooms with his brother George. Like their father, William and George were both bricklayers. In 1911, William and Emily were in two rooms at 79 Canterbury Road, this time sharing with his brother Ernest. The census notes that William was a cripple, and that Emily was ‘totally deaf.’ By 1939 the couple had moved to 23 Lydford Road, south of Carlton Vale. William (81) and Emily (83) died in 1956.

As well as William, Ellen Aldridge had two more children, Beatrice and Richard. In 1901, Beatrice (age 11) was still living in the Mount Hermon Orphanage at 49 Cambridge Avenue, off the Kilburn High Road. We don’t know what happened to Richard immediately following his mother’s death, but on 1 May 1896 a Richard Aldridge, age 10, which would agree with the lad in question, was admitted to Harrow Road Workhouse. He was discharged into the hands of the police a year later, on 10 May 1897, but no further details given.

James Tovey Rowe, the builder of the Peel Road properties and the Sir Robert Peel pub, was originally a publican. In 1861, he was the licensee of the ‘Cricketers’ in Inverness Street, Camden Town. It appears he made a profitable local land deal that allowed him to retire from the pub trade and become a property developer and builder. Rowe was living in Primrose Hill Road at the time of his death in 1901. He died a very rich man and left £37,000, worth about £4.1M today.

In view of the comments made by the Inquest jury and the coroner’s censure, it’s surprising to find Barnabas Bone did not leave South Kilburn. He lived at 129 Pembroke (later Granville) Road until he died there in 1911.

Edwin Pattenden left the Sir Robert Peel in the autumn of 1894 but continued working as a publican until his death in 1907. The Peel was demolished as part of the widescale 1960s redevelopment of South Kilburn. It was replaced by a modern pub in the Peel Precinct, closing in 2013. The building was then used by the British Legion until demolition of the Precinct began in 2019.

The pub before demolion

Postscript
This was not the first or the last time a length of heavy coping collapsed in Kilburn, where it was common to build houses whose fabric could not bear the weight, and without properly uniting the coping with the wall and roof.

We discovered at least two similar incidents.
Around 2pm on Sunday 10 April 1870, close by Peel Road, 120 feet of the substantial cornice above Somerset Terrace, Carlton Rd collapsed in one piece. Although the properties were damaged, no one was hurt. Then in late December 1895, there were two collapses within 24 hours. These happened on Kilburn High Road, and the local paper described the incidents as, ‘carrying the public memory back to the terrible Peel-road disaster.’ The first occurred around 9.45pm on a Saturday evening, the coping falling from No.162. At the time the street was busy with shoppers, but the paper reported just one casualty, an unnamed woman hit on the head by masonry. She lost a lot of blood and was taken, unconscious, to St Mary’s Hospital, where her injury was judged not to be serious, and she was allowed home. Early the next morning, part of the parapet of the Earl Derby pub almost opposite No.142, fell into the street. This time no one was hurt.