History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Marianne has always scoured charity shops for book bargains, and recently she discovered a copy of ‘Victorian Sidelights’ by A.M.W. Stirling (1954). She looked at the index and was surprised to find anecdotes about people or places with West Hampstead and St John’s Wood connections. Mrs Stirling The cover gave no biographical information about the author. An Internet search revealed it was writer and art collector Anna Marie Diana Wilhelmina Stirling (1865-1965). The subject of the book was Jeanie Hering, who became a successful novelist and playwright. Stirling uses Jeanie’s letters and papers to describe her life from childhood to old age.  Born Marion Jean Catherine Hamilton in 1846, she was the illegitimate daughter of the 11th Duke of Hamilton and wife of eminent Victorian sculptor John Adams-Acton. Her early years were happy ones, spent on the Isle of Arran, the home of the Dukes of Hamilton.  Old West End House, William Beckford and the Dukes of Hamilton Hamilton provid...