History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

The story begins with the opera singer ‘Arturo Salvini’ who was born as Arthur Alexander Borrows in Glasgow. His family moved to New Zealand and in 1875, aged about 18, Arthur first performed in Sydney. In 1879 he went to Italy to study singing and he made his Italian debut as the tenor Arturo Salvani on 26 July 1881 in La Scala, Milan.  Following this success, he came to England and worked with the Royal Opera Company in Covent Garden. Here he met the actress and singer Agnes Delaporte and they married in Belfast while on tour in 1883. They had two daughters: Rita (Agnes Marguerite Borrows) who was born on 27 July 1884 at 83 Albert Street in Camden Town, and Enid (Lilian Enid Addelshaw Borrows), born on 30 July 1887 at Hersham Road, Tooting. Miss Agnes Delaporte, 1886 But the marriage was not a happy one, and by 1891 Arthur had left Agnes with the two young children and returned to New Zealand. Agnes and the daughters were living with her father at 6 Clifton Villas in St John’s Wo...

There were many tributes to this well-known actor who died yesterday, aged 95.  He spent some of his childhood in West Hampstead which he wrote about in his autobiography ‘I must be in there somewhere’ (1989) Hodder & Stoughton. Born Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland in 1928, Joss Ackland was three years old when his family moved from North Kensington into the basement flat at No.86 Hillfield Road. He wrote: ‘I was a young boy in West Hampstead where I could travel from my house to the foreign lands of Mill Lane - to the outer space of my primary school (Beckford) with the exciting knowledge that the great planet of West End Lane was in the distance, and my spaceship was eventually able to take me by bus to the fantastic world of the cinema, near Golders Green’.  Then there was the massive State Cinema on Kilburn High Road, where the film was preceded by an hour’s variety show of ‘ventriloquists, high wire acts, musical saws, conjurors and always lines of beautiful high-kicki...

Many of our blog stories have recalled the hardship and pain caused by the tough living conditions among Victorian working people in Kilburn and Willesden, where illness, poverty and poor housing were the norm for many streets. For some people, the festive season over Christmas made little difference to their lives and may even have made matters worse. James and Ellen Doggrell In December 1893 (George) James and Ellen (Eleanor) Doggrell were at 10 Steele Road off Acton Lane, close to the Grand Union Canal. They had no children and rented a single room on the ground floor of the small terrace house which has since been demolished. James was born in 1858 in Bath, Somerset. His father George was an agricultural labourer and he had moved his family to Acton by 1881, to a district generally referred to as ‘Lower Place’. It’s hard to imagine Willesden or Acton and Harlesden as rural neighborhoods, with country lanes and fields divided by hedges or ditches. But that was the case in the 1880s ...

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...

The Black Lion, by Dick Weindling 2021 On 3 October 2023, CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) presented the Black Lion with an award as the winner in the National Pub Historic England Conservation category. Photo by Life in Kilburn To coincide with the award, we look at the history of this well-known pub. Kilburn High Road follows the line of an ancient highway, part of the Roman Watling Street. It became a well-used main road, and as the numbers of travellers increased, so they supported the growth of many pubs along both sides of the street. Some started as beer houses, lacking a liquor license but also selling groceries. Others offered a full range of services, from stabling to food, accommodation, and entertainment. A surprising number have survived, with many rebuilds dating from Victorian times. This was the age of the ‘gin palace’, large establishments with elaborate decorations and big exterior lantern lights advertising their presence.  The best surviving example on the High...

Horace Goldin, was born as Hyman Elias Goldstein the son of Emmanuel Goldstein, a Jewish fruit grower, on 17 December 1873 in Vilnius. Now the capital of Lithuania, it was then part of Russia. His father emigrated to join his brother in the US about 1881, leaving his family behind until he could provide for their passage. Hyman eventually arrived in Nashville Tennessee in 1889 where his parents ran a store. He had been fascinated by conjuring ever since watching a Gypsy magician when he was a boy and in 1894, he took the bold step to quit working as a travelling salesman and become a professional magician.  Hyman adopted the stage name Horace Goldin, and began working in cheap dime museums and similar venues. After the English conjuror Herbert Albini taught him his clever version of the ‘egg in bag’ trick, Goldin’s career prospered but his first major success was with an illusion called Dreyfus Escapes from Devil’s Island, based on the notorious French case. Throughout his career G...

Researching the old newspapers, I was surprised to find that a ‘kinematographer’ had lived briefly in West Hampstead. In this story we look at his career in films. In March 1915 he was looking for work and put an advert in the section ‘Engagements Wanted’ in the trade magazine The Bioscope. It read: Alphonso Frenguelli, camera artist, disengaged, eight years experience, 78 Harvard Court, Honeybourne Road, (West Hampstead) As an important cinematographer and film director at the start of the silent pictures era he was not out of work for long.  He was part of the large Frenguelli family in Rome, where his father was an official artist in the Vatican. Alphonso Goffredo Frenguelli was born there in August 1894. He got into the developing film industry and was the managing director of Celio Films, and then chief cameraman for the famous Cines Co. of Rome. He won the gold medal for cinematography two years in a row at the Italian International film exhibition.  Frenguelli was the l...