History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

This is the story of how a Cricklewood factory played an important role in exposing a fraudulent spiritualist medium in the 1920s. Photographic Dry Plates To record an image, early photographers used wet plates which had to be processed straight away.   In 1871 Richard Maddox coated a glass plate with a gelatine emulsion of silver bromide. He found these plates could be stored until needed, and after exposure in the camera, taken to a darkroom for development at leisure. Joseph Acworth Joseph Acworth was born in Chatham in 1853 and was interested from boyhood in the experimental sciences. He began working in the laboratories of the Royal College of Chemistry in South Kensington, (now part of Imperial College). Acworth became fascinated by the photographic dry plates which Maddox had invented, and he worked in the labs of the newly created Britannia Dry Plate Company at Ilford. He went to the University of Erlangen in Germany where he...

T his very unusual story connects the KKK, a famous haunted house and Kilburn. On 2 May 1957 the MP Fenner Brockway spoke in the House of Commons and said: I think it will be as much of a shock to you as it was to me, to learn that the HQ of the British KKK was in Kilburn! He said there were 253 agents in Kilburn, Shepherds Bush, Birmingham and Liverpool . MPs and other people had been sent a KKK pamphlet and membership form from an address in Kilburn. A Times reporter sent to the address, 80 Kingsgate Road , found it was Green’s Chemist Shop. The chemist said the man the reporter wanted was Ian Shaw, who lived upstairs. After giving the specified three knocks a woman answered the door and said Ian was out. Shaw later phoned the Times and said he would talk with the reporter as long as they did not reveal his name and address.  On the 5 May, the Reynolds News, a paper published by the Cooperative Movement, carried an interview with Ian Shaw. He said he wa...