History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

This is a famous, and in many ways unique, case from 1949.  The Background Stanley Setty was born as Salman Seti or Salik in Baghdad in 1903. The family moved to Manchester in 1908 where his father was a cloth merchant. Stanley worked in the business until 1920 when his father abandoned his wife and children and went to live in Italy. To earn a living, Stanley set up a shipping business with his brother David and when that failed, worked on his own account as a cloth dealer. Unfortunately, he lost a great deal of money gambling and was declared bankrupt in 1927. To avoid his creditors, Stanley left the country in December 1927 to stay with his father in Milan. He returned in April 1928 and at his bankruptcy hearing it was said Stanley bought cloth on credit, selling it cut price on the same day, and not paying the suppliers. That August he pleaded guilty to multiple offences under the Bankruptcy and Debtors Acts. When the judge sentenced him to 18 months in prison, Setty’s mother h...

Trinidadian Desmond Allum came to London to study law in 1958. He worked in hotel kitchens and the Post Office and studied law at night. He qualified and was called to the Bar in the summer of 1962 and then got a job with the Inland Revenue. In 1964 and 1965 he lived at 116 Greencroft Gardens in West Hampstead.  His friend George Hislop was born in Tobago. He played cricket for Trinidad and represented the West Indies at the Empire Games held in Cardiff in 1958. The following year he came to London to train as a teacher. In September 1962 he started work as a PE teacher at the Hillcroft Secondary School in Tooting Bec.  The Incident On the evening of 31 January 1963 Allum and Hislop had visited friends at 351b Finchley Road (now redeveloped as part of the JW3 Centre). They left and were walking down Finchley Road towards the underground station on their way to Balham. At 9.25pm they were stopped and questioned by two plain clothes detectives who asked them to turn out their po...

This is a story about two terrorists in the 1970s and the West Hampstead policeman who was involved in both cases.   PC Bob Brown Born in Croydon, Bob Brown joined the Met in 1969 and was stationed at West Hampstead for 15 years. During this time, he was regularly involved in the policing of the annual Notting Hill Carnival and the experience he derived from these large scale urban policing events served him well during the Brixton Riots in 1981.  Although local crime was the mainstay of PC Brown’s daily brief, he also took part in two cases of international terrorism while serving at West Hampstead police station. They had moved from West End Lane to a new building in Fortune Green Road in 1972. Astrid Proll Anna Puttick had been working for ten months at the Finchley Road Garage, when on 15 September 1978 she was arrested by Special Branch, supported by West Hampstead police officers including PC Brown. The garage at 265b Finchley Road, which has since been demolished, was ...

This the story of a 1916 murder, but it is a very sad case. Mathilde Curtis was a nursery governess aged 35, and her sister Ellen was a music teacher aged 32. They were staying with their aunt Ade Curtis, who was also a music teacher at 5 Finchley Road, a large house close to St John’s Wood station.  On Saturday afternoon 8 January, they had gone shopping and returned to the house just before 1.00. At lunch Ellen whispered to her aunt, ‘Auntie, I’m going to be murdered’. She left the dining room to go to the bathroom followed by Mathilde. The servants heard a thud, and Mathilde ran out of the house holding a table knife dripping with blood. She shouted, ‘Its done, she is dead’. Ellen was found lying in the bathroom with her throat cut. Inspector John Elliot of S Division arrived at the house and arrested Mathilde who was taken to Portland Town police station. She said, ‘I hope I shall be hanged. I have prayed for it for weeks. We both have. She asked me to do it. It is for the best...

Newspaper photo of Kusel and Linda Behr Kusel Behr and his brother Samuel were partners in a very successful company of egg importers called Behr & Mathew in Southwark. They imported millions of frozen eggs from their factory in Shanghai for use in food products across Europe. They had other factories in Berlin, Paris and Hamburg. In 1920 the Behr brothers bought out the Mathew’s family interests. The Behr family had originated in Lithuania. Kusel had married Linda in 1909 and they had four children. Kusel and Linda travelled extensively and lived in America, South Africa and for seven years in Shanghai. They had come from Shanghai to London in May 1923 and later bought No.368 Finchley Road. This was a large house called Lyndale Hall, opposite Lyndale Avenue just north of the Hendon Way. Today this has been replaced by a block of flats. 1954 OS Map  Up until 1923 Kusel had generally been in good health, but at the end of December that year he had a bad attack of bronchitis and ...

This is the story of two women who lived in Finchley Road and who made headlines in the early years of aviation. Amy Johnson is the best-known but Grace Drummond-Hay also had a very interesting career. Lady Grace Drummond-Hay In 1929 Lady Grace Drummond-Hay was the first woman to fly round the world in a Zeppelin airship. Born Grace Marguerite Lethbridge in Toxteth Liverpool on 12 Sept 1895 , she was brought up in the West Hampstead area. Her father Sidney Thomas Lethbridge was the managing director and later chairman of Spratt’s, the firm that made dog biscuits and animal food. The Lethbridge family lived at several local addresses; 28 Kingdon Road (1901 to at least 1904), 11 Lydford Road off Willesden Lane (1911), and then at 14 Avenue Mansions, Finchley Road from about 1918 until Sidney ’s death there in 1937.  Lady Drummond Hay In Hampstead on 9 June 1920 aged 25, Grace Lethbridge married the diplomat Sir Robert Hay Drummond-Hay, who was nearly 50 years ...