History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Gustav Steinhauer was the German spymaster before and during the First World War. He had worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago and had been the Kaiser’s bodyguard when he visited London in 1901 for Queen Victoria’s funeral. In disguise, Steinhauer travelled to England several times to set up a spy network before the War.  Gustav Steinhauer in Naval Uniform He recruited three German hairdressers, Karl Gustav Ernst, Wilhelm Kronauer and Otto Kruger, who acted as intermediaries to receive and forward letters from his agents. Ernst had a shop at 402a Caledonian Road, Kronauer was at 31 Fortune Green Road (near today’s famous Nautilus fish restaurant in West Hampstead), and Kruger was at 334 Kilburn High Road. During the Kaiser’s visit to England in May 1910 to attend the funeral of King Edward VII, Special Branch followed a senior German officer to Ernst’s shop where he stayed overnight. This was suspicious, so a Home Office Warrant (HOW) was issued, and the GPO intercep...

Nellie Seymour was an attractive actress, one of many who made a living from the stage; it was a hard life, often moving with a company from town to town. If you were lucky, you found a role in a production that stayed in a theatre for a few months. One such was ‘Sergeant Brue’ by Owen Hall which premiered in London in 1904. A musical farce, the plot centres around the police sergeant of the title, who comes into £10,000 a year, on condition he remains in the force and is promoted to inspector. Nellie played Vivienne Russell, a society lady and one of the chorus .   The cast of Sergeant Brue, Nellie is seated in the centre (Marianne Colloms) The play was staged at the Strand Theatre and the Prince of Wales Theatre, running in London ’s West End until February 1905. The ladies are carrying unusual animal heads or masks which they had to wear at some point in the performance. One critic disparaged another prop, paper hoops, because the ladies were expected to jump thro...