History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

This is the story of a Brondesbury resident who for many years enjoyed a respectable and prosperous lifestyle but was eventually beset by financial problems that led to bankruptcy and drove him to crime.   City trading – prosperity and problems   Leon Tauber was born in Lithuania around 1870, where he married and had two sons Solomon Sidney (b. about 1891) and Samuel (b.1892). We don’t know when Leon and his family moved to England, probably around 1900, and he became a naturalised citizen in 1905. He made a lot of money working as a lace and embroidery merchant in the Houndsditch area where he was a well-known and respected businessman. The Tauber family moved into Fern Brae, 5 Brondesbury Park in 1910; previously Leon had been living in Houndsditch. Leon was absent on census night the following year, when his wife and their two sons described themselves as wholesale lace manufacturers. We know all the family were involved in the business. In November 1913 the property was f...