History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

The charismatic, but controversial politician Sir Oswald Mosley was born in Mayfair in 1896. He came from a wealthy aristocratic family in Staffordshire who until 1846 were lords of the manor of Manchester. After serving in WWI, he married Cynthia ‘Cimmie’ Curzon, daughter of the Foreign Secretary in 1920 and their wedding guests included King George V and Queen Mary. After a period in the Conservative Party and then the Labour Party, Mosley started his own New Party in March 1931, but it failed to secure any seats at the general election that October.  Following the rise of Fascism in Germany and Italy, and after meeting Mussolini, Mosley set up the British Union of Fascists (BUF) on 1 October 1932 at 12 Great George Street. That year he began an affair with Diana Mitford who was married to Bryan Guinness. After the death of Cimmie in April 1933, Mosley married Diana in Berlin on 6 October 1936 at the home of Josef Goebbels, with Hitler as the guest of honour. However, Mosley look...

In 1935 Scotland Yard was warned by the German police that forged English £5 notes were being sold there at half their face value. Detective Inspector George Hatherill, who spoke several languages, was sent to Berlin to track down the source of the notes. He found they were a very high-quality forgery of a new and unknown type.  To trap the gang, Hatherill posed as an English buyer based in Antwerp, engaged in smuggling and gun running. In his autobiography he says he was comfortable playing this role because he had previously worked in Antwerp as the liaison officer between Scotland Yard and the Belgium police. His contact introduced Hatherill to the gang and he had several meetings in East Berlin cafes. He paid for all the drinks and flashed a roll of bank notes, to convince them he really meant business. Finally, it was agreed that 1,000 Bank of England £5 notes would be ready in a week. At this point the German police raided the homes of the gang members and arrested them all, ...

In 1888 Jack the Ripper had terrified the East End of London with a series of gruesome murders. His story haunted people for years later and letters signed by the Ripper were still being received by the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in October 1889. People across London were fearful. On 15 December 1884 Charles Burcham Farnell a 36-year-old commercial traveller, married 24-year-old Edith Turnor at St Peter’s C hurch in West Hackney. They lived at Church Road Hackney where their first daughter Mary Eleanor was born in 1886. Two years later they moved to Kilburn. Frederick Percy ran a tobacconist’s shop at 143 Kilburn High Road, between Glengall Road and Priory Park Road, and let out rooms above the business. In December 1888 the Farnell family moved in. A second daughter Beatrice Isabel was born the following year. At 6.00pm on Wednesday evening 28 October 1889, Mrs Percy heard moans coming from the Farnell’s rooms at the top of the house. Very concerned, she ran out into Kilburn High...

After experimenting with kites and gliders, the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made their historic flight in an aeroplane on 17 December 1903 near Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. It lasted less than a minute but news of the flight resulted in worldwide interest in aeroplanes and the desire to fly.                Wright Brothers 1903 flight There is undated film of Wilbur Wright on Pathe News. This was particularly the case in France and several Frenchmen soon became leading aviators. In July 1909 Louis Blériot flew from Calais to Dover and won the £1,000 Daily Mail prize for the first English Channel crossing by an aircraft.           French illustration of the Channel crossing Lord Northcliffe the owner of the paper, had been very impressed when he met Wilbur Wright during his demonstrations in France the previous year, and set up the prize. There is a local connection as Alfred Harmsworth had lived i...