History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

In June 1925, the local and national press carried a tragic story, ‘Family Wiped Out’. Kentish-born couple John William Miskin and Alice Annie Pemberton were married at Willesden Parish Church in 1907, when they were living at 240 Willesden High Road with Alice’s sister Jane and her husband Walter. They moved to other local addresses and by the time of the 1911 census they were at 392a Willesden High Road with their two children, Dorothy Jane aged 10 and William aged 7.                392 Willesden High Road today Alice told neighbour Lucy Jackman, who lived in the flat below at 392 Willesden High Road, that she was sometimes lonely and sad when John was absent from home. John was frequently away for long periods of time because he was employed as a steamship officer and by 1921 as a master mariner in the merchant navy.  He was mobilised at the start of WWI and immediately sent to the North Sea. According to official records, ‘his duties...