History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

This is a long forgotten Edwardian crime, but the astonishing story is worth recalling. We found it while researching Harlesden but the scam concerns banks around south London.   The Scam On the morning of 23 September 1908, a smartly dressed young man with a top hat and gold rimmed glasses hired a motorised taxi at Victoria Station and asked the driver, Albert Pendrith, to take him to a branch of the London and South-Western Bank and wait outside. In all they visited eight branches around South London: Vauxhall, Clapham, Balham, Streatham, Tulse Hill, Dulwich, Forest Hill and Catford. The fare was 22 shillings, and he gave the driver a sixpence tip. Each bank manager had received an advice note from Edwin Leopold Cox who had been manager of the Harlesden branch for about six years. The note said Mr Davitt S. Windell of 93 Craven Park Harlesden was transferring his account from the Harlesden branch to the other bank. The notes were on headed paper, stamped with the Harlesden branch...

In 1915 The Foreign Office were contacted by the British Consul General in Barcelona about a poor boy in Granollers near Barcelona, who had received an advertisement written in Spanish, from an astrologer called Professor Zazra shown in a turban and Indian dress, requesting money for a horoscope. A resident of Granollers forwarded the advertisement to the Consul General and asked for action to be taken against Prof. Zazra.  The Foreign Office in London took the matter seriously and raised the complaint with the Home Office who asked Scotland Yard to investigate. This advert by Prof. Zazra appeared in numerous newspapers. The police went to 90 New Bond Street and found that Zazra, ‘The Chief Mystic of the Hindu School of Predication’, was an Englishman called Arthur Drew Clifton. They warned him that unless he stopped advertising, he would be prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act (1824). The police described him as a very shrewd man and one not easily scared, but he complied (for a time...