There’s a great 1910 film on YouTube of a train journey from Baker Street to Uxbridge and on to Aylesbury. Part one is here:
And part two is here:
As the train pulls out of Finchley Road station, at 1m 44 sec, two ghostly chimneys loom up on the right of the screen. They are 130 feet high and were in Lithos Road, at Hampstead’s very own electricity plant.
Several companies wanted to supply Hampstead, but in 1882 and again in 1889, members of the Hampstead Vestry (the precursor to the council), argued against adopting any scheme on the grounds that “the science of electricity is not at present sufficiently developed”.
Then in December 1892, the Vestry decided to open its own power plant, run as a private municipal company. On the evening of October 1st 1894, the electricity was switched on and an enthusiastic crowd in Finchley Road watched 22 street lamps light up simultaneously for the first time.
This postcard was designed for Hampstead’s Electricity Department to send to its customers. The elegantly dressed couple are having dinner surrounded by electrical appliances, including a heater, fan, iron and coffee pot. (c) Historical Publications
Despite hopes it would help reduce the rates, the plant made only a small profit, never exceeding £2,000 even in a good year. The original power station had cost around £30,000 and by 1897 it was necessary to borrow a further £30,000 to increase the generating capacity and lay more cables. Two years later, a further £67,000 was spent. By 1914, Hampstead had invested around half a million pounds in its electricity system. It remained in Hampstead’s control until nationalisation but the plant ceased generating in 1922.
The Lithos Road building was replaced by new offices for the London Electricity Board in 1975. The opening ceremony was attended by 82-year-old Arthur Munden, who remembered taking lunch to his dad at the original coal fired power station.
“Coal used to be brought to a railway siding then taken by horse and cart to be dumped in bunkers. There was coal dust everywhere and no showers.”
In fact, the station burned 10 tons a day and locals complained of the fumes. Arthur himself began working at Lithos Road the year the film above was made. In 1983, the LEB offices made way for housing.
Our recent story of a Girls Laundry that was based for a few years in Old West End House, also mentioned the building of the Midland Railway (today’s Thameslink). The engineering work caused immense disruption to the neighbourhood. It changed the face of West Hampstead forever and blighted many people’s lives – we’ve taken a look at how the railway line came to be and the impact the men who built it had on both the local community and the buildings of West Hampstead.
In Dombey and Son (1848), Charles Dickens included a powerful description of the building of the railway line to Euston that cut through Camden Town. Its progress was more destructive than the Midland line but it gives an idea of what the residents experienced.
The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were visible on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up. Here, a chaos of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the bottom of a steep unnatural hill. Everywhere were temporary wooden houses and enclosures in the most unlikely situations; fragments of unfinished walls and arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, and giant forms of cranes and tripods straddling above nothing. … In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress.
The Act authorising the Midland line from Bedford to St Pancras was passed in July 1863. The Company began buying land and the track was divided into sections, completed by different contractors. Joseph Firbank was responsible for two sections, around five miles between Kentish Town to West Hampstead (which included the Belsize Tunnel), and on to Hendon.
The line cut a large swathe across Hampstead parish. Along with the excavations came brick making, which was noxious and very smelly. On 27 January 1865, during a snowstorm, the Midland’s deputy chairman laid the first brick on the site of a shaft in the Belsize tunnel. The rails emerged from the tunnel at Finchley Road, where there was a station.
In the early twentieth century the railway created a new entrance to Finchley Road station through an arched entrance and down steps behind a cluster of small shops called Midland Crescent. Some were originally coal company offices where householders could go and order coal, (transported by the railway). In 1990 the shops included a record shop (far left), ‘men’s hair stylist’, café and antique shop (far right). They survived until quite recently behind a hoarding immediately north of the entrance to the O2 shopping centre.
Having passed south of West End village with its cottages and houses centred on West End Green, the line curved northwest under Mill Lane and on to Cricklewood and the Welsh Harp. Extensive sidings were built on either side of West End Lane but there was no local station when the line opened to traffic in 1868. ‘West End’ station was a later addition, opening on 1st Match 1871 in a converted villa on Iverson Road. Access to trains was via a footbridge over the lines. The station was renamed ‘West End and Brondesbury’ on 1st April 1904, but then became ‘West Hampstead’ on 1st September 1905. The new station’s entrance was on West End Lane.
The Midland Railway Company buys local property
Under the Act, the Midland Railway Company was legally required to buy properties that stood close to their line. In West End, there were two recently completed mansions north of the proposed route. John Marrian and William Greenwood were business colleagues and friends. They built their houses on opposite sides of West End Lane; Marrian’s was called Sandwell House and Greenwood’s villa was Canterbury House. The house names recalled the birthplaces of their wives: Louisa Greenwood in Kent and Ann Marrian in Birmingham. A local resident recalled the houses as being ‘in the Italian style of architecture with square towers.’ The two families arrived in 1862 and showed every intention of staying. But when the Midland Railway Act was passed, Marrian and Greenwood were concerned the value of their property would fall. So they took advantage of the fact the Midland was obliged to buy their houses, and left. The properties were subsequently let to a series of tenants.
South of the line, the Midland Railway also bought Old West End House (the mansion used for the Girls Laundry School) and the three villas opposite, on what became Iverson Road. These overlooked the railway cutting and the easternmost villa was eventually converted into the railway station.
Tough men…
It’s almost impossible to visualise today, but the fields on either side of West End Lane, from the Green south to Iverson Road, were more or less on a level until the Midland line was built in a deep cutting. Modern basement excavation has nothing on the hundreds of tons of earth that were shifted by hand. The railway workers were called ‘navvies’, tough, hardworking men who travelled the country, sometimes accompanied by their families. (They were given the name ‘navvy’ earlier in the century when excavating the canals or ‘navigations’ as they were also called).
The muck (the navvy’s word for all the earth and rock) would be removed by wagon; one man could shift 20 tons a day by shovelling over his head into the truck. Where a cutting was concerned, ‘barrow runs’ were created up the steep side of the embankment. ‘Making the running’ was one of the most dangerous jobs a navvy could do and was reserved for the strongest among the workforce. Once it was full of muck, a rope was attached to the barrow and the navvy’s belt, then run up the siding, over a pulley and fastened to a horse. The horse then pulled the man and his barrow to the top of the cutting. A successful run relied on the navvy keeping his footing on the muddy plank and the horse pulling steadily. The return journey was made with the barrow behind the man, with the horse keeping the rope taut as the navvy descended.
Men worked day and night in relays. In 1865 a visitor descended a shaft of the Belsize tunnel. (Some shafts were large enough to accommodate horses, lowered to the tunnel floor to pull wagons). He walked towards a distant light, and after about 80 yards saw a dozen men tearing at the clay, some with pickaxes, others with their bare hands. After 12 feet had been excavated, centre supports were put up and the bricklayers moved in.
Railway building in Camden Town showing the excavation of the deep cutting at Park Village (by John Cooke Bourne, 1836)
Navvies were rarely welcomed and often encountered great hostility from local residents, as they had a well deserved reputation for drinking and fighting. Of course, not all of them were rowdy, but reports of their anti-social behaviour grabbed press attention.
In 1846 a group of Irish navvies were charged with starting a riot during the building of the ‘Round House’, the large railway turning shed at Chalk Farm. Hundreds of English workers were engaged in bricklaying on the site and hundreds of Irish were working near Euston station, (the contractors employed equal numbers of each nationality). The battle between the English and the Irish began with a trivial incident at the Round House gates when an Irishman was refused entry by the policeman on duty. A fight broke out which escalated quickly, and despite the efforts of the police who were called out from several police stations, it lasted three hours. The fight was vicious and bloody and although nobody was killed, many men were maimed and three were crippled for life. Twenty Irish men (but no Englishmen), were arrested and seventeen were found guilty at the Old Bailey and received sentences ranging from three to nine months imprisonment.
During the building of the Midland line in 1867, Hampstead Vestry (the precursor of the Council) received a complaint that; ‘several persons had recently been stopped or interfered with whilst passing along West End Lane, by men having the appearance of navvies, and that greater protection was required from the Metropolitan Police.’
But so far as West End’s experience was concerned, there are no reports of major disturbances. This wasn’t the case further up the line towards Hendon: in 1867, some 300 to 400 navvies ‘took complete possession of the Upper Welsh Harp (public house) and made themselves complete masters of the place, broke the windows and did immense damage.’
The manpower required to build the railways was immense: in June 1865 the Midland advertised for navvies; 500 to 1000 men were required for the Kentish Town section of the line with ‘good wages paid.’ It was in a contractor’s interest to be selective, he needed men who would work both hard and fast. And the money had to be good, to compensate for the poor working and living conditions.
…in harsh conditions…
In an age before Health and Safety regulations there were many accidents. ‘When making the tunnel, from Finchley Road to Haverstock Hill, a man by the name of Dale was working in a shaft at Fitzjohns Avenue when they cut through the Conduit spring and the water rushed in and he only saved his life by clinging to a beam until he was rescued by some of his fellow workmen.’ (No date).
In January 1866 an inquest returned a verdict of accidental death on Charles Austin, age 52. He died when he fell into an unprotected pit at the railway works near West End. There were four shafts, each 30 feet deep, but only two were covered. Charles had worked all night and when he wanted to go home at 5am, found his way blocked by three railway trucks that needed moving. He wouldn’t wait, took another path and fell into the pit. ‘Between four and five feet of water had collected at the bottom. Great difficulty was experienced in extricating him, and when brought upon the line Dr Brown pronounced life extinct from drowning.’ It was recommended the pits be covered at night; the accident took place in December when it would still have been dark at 5am and Austin didn’t see the edge of the pit in time.
Near West End, the main issues centred on the health and sanitation problems experienced by the navvies, the brick makers and their families, including large numbers of children. One old resident recalled the West Enders were unwelcoming: ‘the villagers would not associate with the navvies and not one would take any of the workmen as a lodger.’ So James Firbank built a number of two-room wooden huts in the fields between Finchley Road and Mill Lane. He was one of the better contractors, but it was inevitable that the accommodation quickly became squalid and insanitary. He charged his workers six shillings a week rent, but it’s not clear if this was per family or per hut. In return they got free coal and furniture.
The following information is taken from the Hampstead Vestry Minutes and shows the appalling living conditions of the navvies.
June 1865
The Hampstead parish surveyor inspected 15 temporary huts inhabited by railway labourers in the lower brickfield west of Finchley Road. He reported the huts stood on the edge of two open sewers, but none of the huts had proper drainage or a water supply. Their inhabitants relied on open privies built alongside the sewers. Firbank agreed to provide more privies, better and covered cess pools.
July 1865
It was reported there was; ‘No special disease as yet’ among the ‘great influx of navvies and artisans which the railway operations had brought into the Parish.’
October 1865
Hampstead’s Medical Officer of Health (MOH) informed Firbank that many of the large number of children living in his huts still needed to be vaccinated.
November 1865
Firbank gave notice to the hut dwellers, forbidding them to take in more than six lodgers, (previously eight had been the limit and in some cases more). As a result more accommodation was needed for his workers. So Firbank ‘fitted up four houses on the West End House estate as room tenements for the workmen, their families, and lodgers.’ (These were the Iverson Road properties previously mentioned). Firbank also agreed with the parish surveyor to improve the paths in front of his huts; ‘with a view to the regulations respecting over-crowding and other matters being strictly carried out, a Police Constable from Scotland Yard had been engaged for this special duty.’
January 1866
Overcrowding was still rife among the hut dwellers and in some cases they operated a ‘hot bed system’ where; ‘relays of men appeared to occupy the beds by day that had been occupied by night.’
June 1866
The MOH appeared overwhelmed in the face of so many problems. He reported that; ‘the crowded and ill constructed huts used by the navvies and brick makers still caused him much alarm, and demanded constant vigilance’ but went on, despairingly, ‘One dreaded to touch the huts of navvies and brick makers, and could only hope that some good angel might keep disease far from their doors.’
The ‘good angel’ did not appear and unfortunately small pox broken out in the huts near Mill Lane. The MOH recommended that the ditches and privies near the huts be disinfected.
…but with kind hearts
A resident recalled the help offered by a local vicar: ‘the navvies had a champion in the Reverend Henry Sharpe.’ He was minister of the Holy Trinity Church in Finchley Road, then working from a temporary mission church in Belsize Lane.
‘Both Mr and Mrs Sharpe would go down in the clayey railway cutting and speak to the men, encouraging them and helping them. A great many would get Mr Sharpe to mind a part of their wages, so that it was impossible for them to spend the whole in drink as some of them did.’
The North Star pub on Finchley Road was their watering hole, by choice in this instance. While some contractors insisted their workers take part of their wages in beer, Firbank gave them water and oatmeal. It didn’t stop them drinking: Firbank recorded that on average, one of his navvies consumed 2 pounds of meat, 2 pounds of bread and 5 quarts of ale every day, while ‘he once knew a man to drink seventeen quarts in an afternoon.’
Rev. Sharpe gave the men tea in his church: ‘some of the navvies would say, look at our dirty clothes, Sir. Mr Sharpe would reply, never mind your clothes, come as you are’. He did however provide some washing facilities before they all sat down to tea. On the spiritual side, Reverend Sharpe took the church to the navvies, preaching to them in the Belsize tunnel, 60 feet underground. ‘The roughest among them would not hear one word spoken against Mr Sharpe, for if anyone attempted to do so, they had to expect a very rough time of it.’
In 1867, Reverend Sharpe was presented with a gift by officials and navvies: ‘a handsome pianoforte (the cost of which was 55 guineas) and a music stool, “as a token of their high regard and esteem for his services as chaplain to the company.” ’
After the line opened
Once the line opened in 1868, the temporary huts and cottages were quickly cleared away and the navvies moved on to other jobs. But the April 1871 census shows the Midland Railway was still using the old mansion and two of the Iverson Road houses as accommodation for railway staff and their families; 45 people in all, with the men working as platelayers, signalmen and porters. The third house had become the railway station which had only been open a month and doubled as home to stationmaster Thomas Beswick and his wife.
The Railway Company soon moved its employees out of the Iverson Road houses and rented them to private tenants and the old mansion was demolished. By 1874, the company had built Midland (Railway) Cottages on Mill Lane, 10 small properties perched high above the railway cutting, to help replace the lost accommodation. The 1881 census shows five families had moved there from Iverson Road. In the 1890s the Company built a further 10 houses, Heysham Terrace on Iverson Road, providing more housing for their employees.
Today, Ellerton, a block of flats, occupies the site of the Mill Lane cottages. The two Iverson Road houses were demolished in the early twentieth century. Heysham Terrace still stands, renumbered as part of Iverson Road. The extensive railway sidings on either side of West End Lane have been redeveloped as housing or retail space and West Hampstead station has been relocated – back in Iverson Road!
West End House was built in the mid-17th Century and was originally the home of the Beckford family. It stood approximately where Rowntree Close is today, opposite the Thameslink station, and has an interesting history, including a four year spell as a philanthropic laundry school.
Don’t confuse this West End House with another building of the same name, which was the home of the Miles family near West End Green. To help distinguish between the two, locals sometimes called the Beckford property Old West End House and the Miles’, New West End House.
West End House, 1865 OS map
The Beckford house was much modified by successive owners and stood on a low hill. In 1842, West End House was described as a three-storey building with nine rooms on the top floor and seven on the floor below, with a balcony. There was a drawing room and a study on the ground floor plus kitchen and servants’ hall – and a water closet. The house came with upwards of 20 acres but by the 1850s it was available to rent with just a small amount of land.
In 1855 the last tenant to rent the mansion as a home moved in. Daniel Whittle Harvey had been a radical MP who founded The Sunday Times, and now held the prestigious post of Commissioner of the City of London Police. But the neighbourhood was changing and he stayed only a couple of years. After Whittle left, the property’s slow decline began and by June 1857 it stood empty.
The setting of West End House was irreparably damaged by railway building. What we now call the London Overground was originally promoted as the Hampstead Junction Railway in 1853. By 1856, the railway company had purchased five acres of land immediately south of West End House. The Act authorising the Midland Railway’s extension to St Pancras was passed in 1863 and its route lay in a cutting immediately opposite the old mansion. Railway building was very disruptive and unlikely to appeal to most tenants.
The philanthropic brewer
Under these circumstances, landlords looked for alternative rentals, maybe a school or similar concern.
Robert Culling Hanbury (1823-1867) was an extremely wealthy partner in the old brewing firm of Truman, Hanbury and Burton. At one time their brewery in Brick Lane was said to be one of the largest in the world. He helped set up the Reformatory & Refuge Union in 1856, and the following year the Union decided to create the Girls’ Laundry & Training Institution for Young Servants. Then as now, many households sent their laundry away to be done. The Institution was the idea of “some ladies who had considerable experience in the work of female reformation”, so this training was aimed at a specific group.
In November 1857, The Times published an appeal for £500, which was needed to set up the laundry “for the employment of females from the London refuges and reformatories, who are of sufficient age to leave these institutions, but require further training or protection from bad parents.”
The Institution was described as an “industrial home” – not a reformatory or a refuge – it would provide the trainees with “protection, employment and prepare them for future service”. Girls from poor and broken homes could look forward to, at best, marriage and children; and at worst, prostitution. The difficulty in “reclaiming” girls who had “left the path of virtue” was mentioned, as was the fact that there were few opportunities for any woman to earn a regular and living wage. If the girls could be trained, in this case for laundry work, they’d have a skill to offer, “as would enable them to undertake engagements either in families or in washing establishments, or as wives. It is proposed that the girls should be properly cared for, and receive necessary teaching of other descriptions”.
Needlework, housework and plain cooking were also on the curriculum. It was hoped the Institution would gain a reputation such that respectable working men would also send their girls for instruction. As was common for the time, religion and strong moral beliefs pervaded the running of the Institution.
There were regulations governing the selection of girls to be admitted. Nothing was free. A girl certainly couldn’t just turn up and ask to be trained. The Ladies Management Committee, which almost certainly included Mrs Hanbury among its members, vetted the entries. Admission was £10 for each girl, payable quarterly in advance, unless there were special circumstances or she had worked in a laundry before. The intention was for the girls to earn enough to cover their day to day expenses and make the business self-supporting. A few critics raised doubts – at least one recent attempt by another philanthropic organisation to train girls for laundry work had failed.
By January 1858, £268 had been raised and the committee searched for premises. This took some time. It decided West End House was the most suitable “on account of its airy situation, (good for laundry and inmates’ health), distance from surrounding buildings and capability of accommodation in the house”.
A lease was signed, but the rent was higher than the committee had intended paying, at £150 a year. Given the known proximity of the Hampstead Junction Railway and the dirt associated with steam engines, the committee’s decision to rent West End House was questionable, especially as more money had to be spent to create the girls’ accommodation. Then there were the further costs associated with providing laundry facilities and equipment, all this before the business could be launched.
Old West End House, Girls Laundry Training School
The Training Institution took possession of West End House on 5th July 1858, and began building the wash house. The first three girls were admitted a week later on the 12th. In January 1859, an article in The Philanthropist described progress so far. The number of girls had risen to just seven, as it was decided not to admit more until all modifications had been completed. The plan had always been to open the enterprise with a few girls who already had laundry experience, get a few clients and then take in trainees. As regards their moral welfare, the girls sometimes attended services held at Christ Church in Hampstead; the Reformatory and Refuge Union had given books for a library and the Bible Society had likewise donated a number of bibles. But the article concluded with the ominous statement that “the sum which was generously contributed last year is entirely exhausted”, spent on fitting up the wash house and furnishing the Institution to receive 40 girls. And as yet, no laundry work had been done; for the past six months the girls had been doing needlework “necessary for the house and laundry”.
There were more appeals for pecuniary aid. In April 1859, Hanbury said he believed the enterprise would “realise very favourable results”. That September, when the laundry business had barely got underway, the entire estate, including the house, was put up for sale. But as the Institution’s lease still had an unexpired term of 28 years to run, it continued working while the land around it was slowly developed.
The greatest care had been taken in selecting a matron who would not only instruct the girls in laundry work but also be responsible for their moral training. Accordingly, the Union advertised for “a person of sound religious principles, influence and tact.” Miss Sarah Woodhams was the matron in January 1859 but by 1861, the laundry was being managed by Susan Beech, a 50-year-old widow born in Islington. Her live-in staff comprised two assistants and a porter. Mrs Beech was in charge of 25 girls, far fewer than the 40 originally intended. Of these, 21 were “under training for laundry services”, and the remainder, “under training for domestic services”. Their ages ranged from 14 to 17.
The laundry folds
A track off West End Lane became Iverson Road, and in 1862 three large houses were being built there. In March that year, the laundry was in trouble with the local authorities over a blocked drain, but the committee blamed the builder working on the land opposite, saying he had diverted the drain. In May, a bazaar was held to raise funds for the Institution but by September 1862 West End House stood empty once again. Matron Beech, her staff and the girls had gone. There is no record of the laundry relocating elsewhere, so almost certainly it had closed. Presumably the business had been unprofitable, which meant that unless expenses and salaries were covered by donations, it couldn’t keep going. Inadequate funding appears to have been a problem from the very start.
The Midland Railway Company bought West End House and the three large houses built opposite, and used them as temporary accommodation for its workers, the navvies who built the line to St Pancras. The mansion was demolished around 1873.
Today’s visitor to Iverson Road will find no trace of West End House or the three Victorian villas. It took 25 years for the site of the mansion and the land round it to be built on and the area has undergone extensive redevelopment in recent years. Two of the villas were demolished around the turn of the 20th Century; the third was adapted for use as the first Midland Railway station and demolished after the station was relocated on West End Lane.
Back in East London, Robert Hanbury was well known for supporting good causes. He had donated £100 of his own money to help establish the West End Laundry. But his wealth couldn’t protect against personal tragedy. In September 1863, two of Robert’s sons, Francis (11), and Herbert (7) contracted scarlet fever and died while on holiday in Eastbourne. Robert’s wife Caroline died just a week later. Press reports of her death give no cause of her death other than to say that it was not scarlet fever and that it followed what one paper called her “unwearying nursing” of her sons. Robert Hanbury married again and died in 1867, after suffering from rheumatic fever for several weeks.
Truman Hanbury and Buxton Brewery in Brick Lane, 1842
The recent commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War has focused many people’s thoughts on the service men and women who fought, died and survived the conflict. Ten years ago, attention centered on the millions of animals and birds that served alongside British, Commonwealth and Allied troops in all conflicts during the twentieth century. The memorial to Animals in War in Park Lane was unveiled on 24 November 2004. An inscription reads, ‘They had no choice.’ But Kilburn is home to a much earlier – and more active – memorial to the nation’s service animals.
Horses, dogs and donkeys were the most commonly used animals – mainly for transport and haulage, but camels, elephants, pigeons, bullocks, dogs and goats were all pressed into service. They suffered from exposure, lack of food and disease, dying alongside their human companions.
The Park Lane memorial was the fulfilment of an idea that dates as far back as the early 1920s when the RSPCA proposed a memorial for animals that had served in WWI. A committee was set up, funds were raised and the site chosen was Hyde Park corner. In 1925 photographs of the proposed memorial were submitted to Westminster City Council but there the project appears to have stalled.
Instead the RSPCA decided on a more practical commemoration, in the form of the Animal War Memorial Dispensary in Kilburn, where, in the words of a contemporary report, ‘the sick, injured or unwanted animals of poor people could receive, free of charge, the best possible veterinary attention, or a painless death.’
It took many years to find a site for the Animal War Memorial Dispensary. The RSPCA acquired 10 Cambridge Avenue in March 1931 and that May, the freeholders allowed a change of use from a private house to a ‘free dispensary for sick and injured animals.’
The memorial inscription on the Kilburn building is echoed by that in Hyde Park: ‘To all animals who suffered and perished in the Great War knowing nothing of the cause, looking forward to no final victory, filled only with love, faith and loyalty, they endured much and died for us.’
Thirty one sculptors entered the competition for a memorial design for the main facade of the building. Frederick Brook Hitch of Hertford was the winner. The panel over the entrance had to be removable, as the RSPCA only held a lease, not the freehold of Number 10 Cambridge Avenue.
RSPCA plaque on the outside of the Dispensary in Kilburn
A local paper recorded the official opening on 10 November 1932, by the Countess of Warwick. But the dispensary had been at work for over a year, during which time 6,000 animals had been treated. The ceremony was preceded by a meeting at St Augustine’s School in Kilburn Park Road, presided over by the Chairman of the RSPCA, Sir Robert Gower.
By the mid 1930s, more than 50,000 animals and birds had received attention at the Dispensary. At the rear of the well-equipped premises were glass fronted kennels and catteries with a loose box for horses. There was accommodation on site for vet and an assistant, providing 24 hour care. In 1936 alone, 9,756 animals passed through the doors.
The RSPCA clinic at Cambridge Road is still open. The main door is flanked by two marble memorial panels. They record that 484,143 animals were killed by enemy action, disease or accident and that 725,216 animals were treated by the RSPCA during WW1. We now know the overall mortality figures were far higher, with an estimated 8 million horses dying in WW1.
The horse is the animal most often associated with the European conflict. In 1914, the British and German armies had a cavalry force of some 100,000 men, but the development of trench warfare rendered cavalry charges unviable as a military tactic. But horses and mules were still needed to transport materials and supplies and to pull guns and ambulances. The animals also had to be fed, watered and tended. Strong ties developed between horse and rider. The Daily Mail on 31st December 1914, carried an article by a Welsh soldier serving in the Royal Field Artillery. He’d been with his horses for several years before war broke out. He said;
I could talk to them just as I am talking to you. There was not a word I said that they did not understand. And they could answer me – I was never once at a loss to know what they meant. Early in the retreat from Mons, a shell crashed right into the midst of the section with which I was moving. My gun was wrecked. I was ordered to help with another. As I mounted the fresh horse to continue the retreat, I saw my two horses struggling and kicking on the ground to free themselves. I could not go back to them, I tell you it hurt me. Suddenly a French chasseur dashed up to them, cut the traces, and set them at liberty. I was a good way ahead by then, but kept looking at them, and I could tell they saw me. Those horses followed me for four days. We stopped for hardly five minutes and I could not get back to them. There was no work for them but they kept their places in the line liked trained soldiers. They were following me to the very end. Whenever I looked, there they were in the line, watching me so anxiously and sorrowfully as to make me feel guilty of deserting them. Whether they got anything to eat, I do not know. I wonder if they dropped out from sheer exhaustion – I hope to Heaven it was not that. At any rate, one morning when the retreat was all but over, I missed them. I suppose I shall never see them again. That’s the sort of thing that hurts a soldier in war.
During the Gallipoli campaign, horses became so weak they collapsed and died in the mud and shell holes. When the New Zealand Forces were sent home, their horses were divided into three classes. Some mares were kept for breeding purposes; other horses were transferred to the British Army. Of the final group, many were destined to be butchered for meat.
Dead horses in 1918 (image copyright free via the Imperial War Museum)
Dogs accompanied sentries on patrol, carried messages and worked as scouts, ‘sniffing’ out the enemy ahead. Others acted as medics, sent onto the battlefield equipped with basic supplies that allowed a wounded man to tend to his own injuries. They might also stay with a fatally injured soldier until he died.
Pigeons were very reliable when it came to sending messages. It has been calculated that they had an astonishing 95% success rate getting through to their destination. The Government even issued a special ‘Defence of the Realm Regulation’ to prohibit the shooting of homing pigeons. Offenders were warned they faced six months imprisonment or a £100 fine.
A pigeon named ‘Cher Ami’ was awarded the Croix de Guerre for work in the American sector around Verdun in 1918. On her last mission, Cher Ami was shot but delivered a message that gave the co-ordinates of 194 soldiers cut off behind enemy lines. The men were rescued. Cher Ami recovered and was sent back to the USA where she died in 1919. Her body was put on display at the Smithsonian museum, Washington D.C.
There is newsreel footage of animals in service during WW1; but be warned many of them make for unpleasant viewing.
As we wait and hope that Andy Murray can repeat his Wimbledon success of last year, few people know that West Hampstead had its very own tennis world champion in the 1890s and 1900s.
New West End House (later called West End Hall) faced West End Lane, near the Green. The house has a long history but we’re concentrating on the Miles family who owned the property for more than 70 years. (The mansion and its grounds were built over from the late 1890s, to create Fawley Road, Honeybourne Road and Crediton Hill).
Publisher John Miles married Ann Chater in 1810; and the couple moved to West End three years later, where they stayed and brought up their eleven children. Eustace Hamilton Miles was their grandson, and was born at West End in 1868.
Eustace Miles
He went to Heath Mount school (near Whitestone Pond) and Marlborough College, where he played tennis and squash and was a member of both cricket and football teams. Eustace went to Kings College Cambridge in 1887, gaining a B.A. and M.A.. At Cambridge he began his distinguished career in racquets (an early form of squash), and real tennis, playing against Oxford.
Eustace won an amazing number of English and world titles, including a silver medal at the 1908 Olympics in real tennis.
Real tennis or ‘jeu de paume,’ was a precursor of lawn tennis, and was played in an indoor court. This was the only time the game was included in the Olympics. (For more on real tennis, read Historical Dictionary of Tennis, by J. Grasso (2011)).
Grasso acknowledged Miles to have been one of the best players ever. Eustace was still playing competitively in his 40s and winning tennis matches against far younger players. In 1910 Miles wrote to the Times,
People seem to imagine that after 30 a man is no good. I am in my 42nd year, and am thoroughly fit, I hope. Men ought to be in their prime – at least for strength and endurance and nerve – at 35.
A few years later he said,
Some sports are best given up at an early age. Football would be the first to go, and that when a man is about 25 years of age, racquets should follow. To cricket and tennis, however, I would by no means place any limit.
Eustace’s other great interests were diet, health and, not surprisingly, regular and targeted exercise for adults and children. He became a prolific writer on aids to learning, sport, religion and history as well as dietary regimes with nearly 80 books under his name (or joint authorship); his wife has an additional 20 titles to her credit, largely dealing with the subject of vegetarian food.
Eustace told a reporter that he, ‘loathed and detested’ the word ‘vegetarianism.’
I dismiss that word. It stands for cranks and bewhiskered gentlemen and other undesirable people. My slogan is a “balanced, meatless diet.” I eat vegetables, eggs and cheese like yourself and others, in their right proportion.
He embraced this diet early in his sporting life, ascribing his many successes to his food regime:
He had lost tennis matches from cramp believed to be due to the eating of flesh, and that he has won a racquets match on a glass of hot milk fortified by two teaspoons of mild powder. His habit is to take no breakfast and only a light lunch. At his evening meal he takes salad, Hovis bread, and fruit, with sometimes a cup of tea.
Eustace married Dorothy Beatrice Harriet Killick (known as Hallie) in March 1906 at St Clement Danes church in the Strand, where her father Rev. Richard Henry Killick had been Vicar during the 1860s. When Hallie was struggling with depression after her father’s death in 1903 she was helped by reading Eustace’s book Expression and Depression, and was inspired to write a book about her own experiences. She found Eustace’s address and contacted him: “The friendship grew, and Miss Killick, having been finally converted to Mr Eustace Miles’ methods of diet, decided to adopt vegetarianism and marriage“.
Eustace took his interest in food to the next level, starting The Eustace Miles Restaurant Co Ltd with Miles as managing director. Included among its shareholders were Eustace’s old school and college friend, novelist E. F. Benson, playwright George Bernard Shaw and the headmaster of Eton. The Eustace Miles Restaurant opened its doors at 40 Chandos Street in May 1906.
The aim is not simply to avoid meat and other flesh foods, but it is primarily to select a variety of nourishing and sustaining foods which may take the place of flesh foods as builders of the body.
Miles supported the suffragette movement and the restaurant became a meeting place for and a favourite of Sylvia Pankhurst. Talks were held there and suffragettes released from Holloway Prison were taken to Chandos Street for breakfast. Edith Craig campaigned for Votes for Women from a pitch outside the restaurant.
The restaurant’s windows were dressed with tins and packets of food produced by another of Eustace’s companies or copies of Healthward Ho!, his monthly magazine. The menu included references to ‘N’ ‘N.N’ and ‘F.U’, meaning the dish in question was ‘nourishing’, ‘very nourishing’, or ‘free from uric acid’. A 1914 review was favorable but said some dishes lacked flavour. They may well have tasted bland compared to the rich and highly seasoned food of the period. However, the restaurant prospered during WWI when meatless cookery became common, offering “balanced meals, nourishing and sustaining”.
People poked fun at Eustace and what they viewed as his dietary fads. In 1906, a poem appeared in praise of the mutton chop:
I love it! I love it! Let those who please
Enjoy a diet of nuts and peas;
Let Shaw compose his dramatic scenes
On cabbage, tomatoes and kidney beans
Let Eustace Miles find muscular force
In carrot cutlets with Plasmon sauce,
Or other equally messy slop –
But give me my old fashioned mutton chop.
Plasmon was another Miles’ food product, advertised as 30 times more nutritious than its only ingredient, milk.
The restaurant, ‘where people who look like garden pests eat like garden pests’, merited a wry mention by E.M. Forster in Howards End when Margaret Schlegel says to Mr Wilcox,
Next time you shall come to lunch with me at Mr Eustace Miles’s.
With pleasure.
No, you’d hate it,’ she said, pushing her glass towards him for some more cider. It’s all proteids and body-buildings, and people coming up to you and beg pardon, but you have such a beautiful aura.
Despite expanding into healthfood shops, opening a second restaurant in the Kings Road and a guest house in Carshalton, Eustace’s business empire eventually crumbled. He talked a lot of sense on many subjects but there wasn’t enough support for his food, ideas and books; he’d been “unduly optimistic” said a judge at one of the bankruptcy hearings. Chandos Street closed in December 1933, the victim as Eustace saw it, of “an age of luxury”.
People today would rather spend 5sh on having their hair waved, or on cigarettes, or on entertainment than on good meals. When it comes to spending a mere shilling on healthy food, they prefer a sticky bun and a cup of coffee for five pence and the rest for amusement.
Eustace was declared bankrupt the following January and the restaurant furniture and equipment was auctioned off. Among all the items of cutlery, table linen and kitchen utensils were six pianos!
Eustace and Hallie lived for many years in Ridgmount Gardens, off Tottenham Court Road. After the bankruptcy they moved to Fulham and then south of the river to Battersea. Hallie died in 1947 and Eustace just a few days before Christmas 1948.
An obituary of Eustace Miles said:
He was original, independent and ingenious in all he undertook, and his own entry in Who’s Who, with its reference, among his recreations to “punning, riddle-making and patience” was characteristic.’
When he died he left only £175, which today is worth about £5,250.
Eustace Miles’ sporting achievements
1898-1903: amateur real tennis champion of England
1898-1903: amateur real tennis champion of the world
1900: the first non-American winner of the real tennis US Championship
1900: amateur racquets champion of America
1900: amateur racquets champion of England
1902: amateur racquets champion of England
1902, 1904, 1905 and 1906: amateur racquets champion of the World (doubles)
1905: amateur real tennis champion of the World
1905-1906: amateur real tennis champion of England
1906: amateur racquets champion of the World (singles)
1908: Olympic Silver Medal. He had coached the winner, Jay Gould II, during his stay in America in 1900-2.
1909, 1910: amateur real tennis champion of England
This year sees the 150th anniversary of the opening of the first John Lewis shop on Oxford Street. Named after its founder, there’s a local connection as John Lewis built a mansion in Hampstead and his son John Spedan Lewis was living in Mortimer Crescent, Kilburn, during the 1920s.
John Lewis worked as a draper’s apprentice in Wells, Somerset before borrowing a pound – or a sovereign as it was then called – and coming to London to seek his fortune. He worked as an assistant and then silk buyer and then in 1864 bought 132 Oxford Street, on the corner of Holles Street, the shop where his business blossomed and expanded. In 1906 he bought the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square.
John Spedan Lewis was his eldest son, born in 1885. The name ‘Spedan’ was chosen to commemorate Ann Speed, John junior’s great aunt. The family home was Spedan Tower, a turreted mansion set in three acres at Hampstead, overlooking Branch Hill. John Spedan led a very sheltered childhood with few friends; his father rarely entertained and holidays were generally spent with the family at Weston-super-Mare. Instead of going to university, 19-year-old Spedan entered his father’s business and it was he that began to develop the partnership model, after he realised that the income he, his father and his brother Oswald were receiving far exceeded the total payroll of his father’s staff.
John Spedan Lewis
John senior wasn’t having any of it and nothing much could be done until 1914, when John Spedan was put in charge of Peter Jones, which was making large losses. His father insisted Spedan spend his working day at Oxford Street, stipulating he could travel to Sloane Square only after 5pm. Losses continued at Peter Jones but when John Lewis insisted his son give up the shop, Spedan refused. Instead he traded his lucrative partnership with his father for an uncertain future, namely complete control of Peter Jones. Despite dire predictions of bankruptcy, Spedan turned the business round and by 1919 he had converted an annual loss of £8,000 into a profit of £20,000, and began plans to introduce his Partnership idea. His financial success prompted reconciliation with his father, who declared, ‘That place is a great credit to the boy – a very great credit!’ In 1923, Spedan rejoined his father in partnership at Oxford Street.
Spedan believed women had an important role to play in business and that year he married Sarah Beatrice Mary Hunter, a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford. She’d joined the company before her marriage and continued to play an important role. Spedan and Sarah moved from 37 Harley House on the Marylebone Road to North Hall in Kilburn (even then, estate agents called it St John’s Wood). They lived there from 1925 until 1930. The large detached property, built in 1861, stood where Mortimer Place now meets Mortimer Crescent. Lewis also owned the house opposite, 6 Mortimer Crescent, which was used as staff quarters.
Spedan Tower plaque
John Lewis snr died in June 1928, aged 93. The Hampstead home went to Spedan who sold it. Spedan acquired his brother Oswald’s share in the business and, while he was living in Kilburn, he launched the John Lewis Partnership in April 1929. He transferred the equity capital to trustees on behalf of the employees by means of an interest-free loan of nearly a million pounds, to be gradually repaid out of profits. But he was cautious and until the plan proved sound enough to hand control to those who worked in it, Spedan retained a controlling interest. This meant he could end the experiment any time he wanted. The final handover was delayed by the war until 1950.
There is a short film where John Spedan Lewis outlines his business philosophy:
The extensive grounds surrounding North Hall allowed Spedan Lewis to indulge his life-long love of natural history and wild animals. An ‘owlery’ was built to house his collection of pheasants and owls (managed by a Mr Gander!), as well as various animal enclosures and a kennel run. Spedan Lewis financed expeditions to collect rare species, which he bred in captivity and gave to zoos. In 1927 and 1928, he wrote in the ‘Gazette’, the firm’s house journal:
‘The Birds at North Hall’
I have here a small collection of birds which are, for the most part, rather exceptionally interesting. To see them properly takes about three-quarters of an hour or a little more. The birds can be seen without going through the house, so visitors in this way need not have any fear of causing inconvenience.
Although an appointment was necessary, ‘partners would be very welcome to bring friends, especially children.’
Spedan Lewis also collected wild animals. A colleague described what happened during regular games of tennis at North Hall: “He had a tennis court made with cages at each end in which he kept lynxes. One of those cages was up against the back netting so if you went to pick up your ball, there was a lynx about a foot away.”
In 1929, Lewis moved his family and menagerie from Kilburn to the Leckford estate in Hampshire (today owned by Waitrose). North Hall and 6 Mortimer Crescent (‘the cottage’) were put up for sale by the John Lewis Company in 1932. The details give some idea of the scale of the property.
Very quiet situation: sunny aspect: good garden and first-rate hard tennis court, billiard room, panelled drawing room (patent dancing floor), panelled dining room, fitted library. 7 bed rooms, 3 bath rooms, electric light; central heating; drains all recently put into perfect order; garage for 2 large cars; cottage opposite divided into maisonette for 2 married servants.
Despite the “first rate” tennis court, there was a lack of buyers and the company tried to develop the site. A proposal was made in 1933 to replace the main house with seven smaller ones, and although the authorities were inclined to give permission, instead the house was reported as sold in January of the following year, for just under £3,000, worth about £175,000 today.
Constance Lynn was Spedan Lewis’ secretary and housekeeper from 1928 to 1961. She reminisced about her employer and her punishing work regime.
We used to work in London during the week and go to Leckford, Mr Lewis’s country house, at the weekends, still working. It was a seven-day-a-week job. We were sometimes expected to work until midnight and produce the answer at the breakfast table. Hours and weekends were nothing to Mr Lewis. And holidays were, in his own words, ‘plainly inconvenient’. We didn’t get any rest. Occasionally I was allowed a weekend off and went home. We just grabbed what we could. Really, we gave our whole lives to Mr Lewis. I think it was the pure magic of the man. We could have murdered our boss at times but we had the many perks which most secretaries don’t have, like being taught to ride, taught to drive a car, taken to Switzerland. I shall be ever grateful for the education I got with him.
The Lewis skiing holidays might last a month, but although enthusiastic, Spedan wasn’t very good.
In 1955, John Spedan Lewis retired on his 70th birthday, (a move he later regretted and tried to reverse) and lived at Longstock Park, Hampshire, until his death in 1963.
What was he really like? Undoubtedly a reformer and altruist, Constance Lynn revealed Spedan was also a demanding employer. The preface to ‘Retail Trading’ (1968), a privately published collection of John Spedan’s memoranda, put it even more bluntly:
He was vain and cantankerous … sometimes cruel in the intellectual arrogance with which he treated individuals who were his mental inferiors … he certainly sacrificed his family to his dream of partnership.
For a more balanced view his Times obituary said:
To the last an unrepentant and indeed aggressive individualist, he yet created one of the most distinctive and successful co-partnership organisations. A man of high purpose, unbridled imagination and great courage, he was outspoken but had in many respects the most kindly and generous disposition. He was an all-round sportsman, an omnivorous reader, greatly interested in natural history and music.
Even the John Lewis Gazette acknowledged his views were like salt, “that can either sting or give savour”. It concluded, “His was simply the uncompromising voice of a great individualist.”
In 1941, North Hall was unoccupied and was being used by Hampstead Council as a temporary furniture store when it was badly damaged by a V1 flying bomb. (The same bomb forced George Orwell to vacate his flat across the road, at 10a Mortimer Crescent). The site was subsequently cleared and now forms part of the Mortimer Estate. Spedan Tower in Hampstead was requisitioned by the War Office and in 1947, became home to a number of German scientists undertaking ‘secret research work for Britain.’ The house has been replaced by houses and flats. A Heath & Hampstead Society plaque commemorates John Lewis and John Spedan Lewis near the site of their old home.
The three stories here show how rural the area was in the 19th Century and how early medicine attempted to deal with rabies.
Be careful where you sit!
The following report appeared in the newspapers in late June 1858. Mrs Hoxwell who lived in Park Street near Regent’s Park, was “Walking in the fields in company with some friends at West-end Hampstead, when sitting down upon the grass, A female adder with the distinctive zigzag pattern[/caption]
The snake, more commonly known as an adder, was killed. Mrs Hoxwell received “The usual remedies” at a nearby doctor’s house before being taken home. Despite gloomy comments that she was “Not expected to survive”, no one named ‘Hoxwell’ died in the weeks following the incident, so reports of her death may have been exaggerated. Although the bite of a European adder can be very painful, it is rarely fatal.
Nine persons poisoned at Kilburn
In the late afternoon of Sunday 22 September 1889, nine Kilburn residents, including a three year old girl, were rushed to St Mary’s Hospital Paddington. One report described them as “Half-blind and in a violent delirium.”
What could have caused their dreadful condition?
That morning, a number of friends had gone for a walk, following the line of the Midland Railway (today’s Thameslink) north towards Cricklewood. They included three neighbours from Palmerston Road: 30 year old Henry Lansdown; William Pye, a 27 year old house painter and 23 year old carpenter Henry Holman. Spotting a bush covered in wild berries, they tried them and found they tasted very sweet. Lansdown and Holman picked a large quantity to take home. But unfortunately, they didn’t realise they were harvesting Belladonna berries, commonly known as ‘Deadly Nightshade’ and extremely poisonous. Their wives made fruit pies and the families enjoyed an unexpected treat for dinner. Then one by one
they fell ill, but after several days in a critical condition, luckily everyone survived. William who had eaten most berries was violently sick, which probably saved his life.
Deadly nightshade berries
Surprisingly, given the potential for a further and possibly fatal accident, no one removed the plant. A year later the story was recalled by a local doctor who commented: “A single shrub of Deadly Nightshade, of exceptional size, grows by the side of the Midland Railway a quarter of a mile north of Mill Lane”. He concluded the seeds must have been “transported” to Hampstead by the railway, as the nearest plants grew some distance away. (Oxford Ragwort was spread round the country in a similar manner).
Mad dogs and English men
Death from the bite of a dog suffering from rabies was a regular occurrence in Victorian England. The only ‘cure’ was to cauterise the bite with a red hot poker. Aside from being an extremely painful and disfiguring process, it wasn’t always successful. Some victims were sent to Paris for treatment by Louis Pasteur, who in July 1885 had developed a vaccine to treat rabies, his motto being “Last bitten, first served”! The statistics show how successful Pasteur was: in the first four years he vaccinated 6,950 people, of whom only 71 died.
During a rabies outbreak, dogs were legally required to be muzzled. When this happened in 1896, the London County Council issued a muzzling order on Monday 17 February; unfortunately the day after two Kilburn men had what one reporter called, “an exciting encounter” with a mad dog. A nursemaid and two children were walking along Salusbury Road accompanied by the family dog, when it was suddenly and viciously attacked by an unmuzzled fox terrier. The animal was rabid and foaming at the mouth. The girl tried to beat the terrier off, but it snapped at both her and the children. Fortunately Harry Avriall (an advertising bill poster) and P.C. Monaghan came to her rescue. They chased the dog into an empty house where they killed it, but not before it had bitten both men on their hands.
The Kilburn Times noted that policemen were regularly carrying lassoes to catch dogs without handling them. The two men had their wounds cauterised as soon as possible. It was agreed the police would pay for their officer to be sent to the Pasteur Institute for treatment, but it was only a last minute donation from an anonymous benefactor that allowed Harry to go there. On arrival in Paris, the police constable’s wounds were found to be clean but Harry’s bite was inflamed and had to be cleaned using acid. Then both men were given the vaccine. Pasteur believed you needed to ‘work’ rabies out of the system so as part of the cure, they walked at least five miles every day of their two week stay. After the second injection which caused some stiffness, first Monaghan and then Avriall returned to London. Again, so far as we know, both recovered: Harry was living in Harrow in 1911 and still bill posting.
A policeman lassoing a mad dog
On 17 April 1896, the Times reported that since the muzzling order had been made in London that February, 13,608 dogs had been seized. Of these, 42 were rabid and had been destroyed. Despite the awful consequences of being bitten, the practice of muzzling divided opinion among dog lovers. The so-called ‘muzzle maniacs’ who wanted nationwide muzzling for twelve months to ensure the complete eradication of rabies, were up against the anti-muzzlers, who refused to believe that dogs could go mad. The Marquis de Leuville, whose biography we’ve written, was prosecuted for not muzzling his dog. He wrote a comic song called “Muzzling”, where the cover of the sheet music shows a terrier with appealing eyes, looking out from behind a large muzzle. “Written on behalf of many faithful suffering dogs,” the lyrics reveal de Leuville’s ardent belief that muzzling was cruel, while one advert directly appealed to like-minded pet owners: “Everyone who has a dog should get the song now.”
Local shop owner John Symonds, a harness maker at 37 Kilburn High Road, understood the power of advertising. He made muzzles and used his own dog as a canine billboard. It became a common sight in Kilburn to see his dog walking the streets, wearing a muzzle and with a cloth on its back, giving full details of Symonds’ store. For several weeks a local photographer displayed a photo of the dog in his shop window; muzzled, wearing specs and appearing to read a newspaper.
Rabies continued to menace the population with sporadic outbreaks up to the 1920s, largely attributable to imported dogs. Locally, in February 1900, Mrs Lilian Lancaster was bitten by a mad dog while visiting friends at Cricklewood. Her wound was duly cauterised at a local chemist shop, and the census shows her living with her family at 14 Weech Road a year later.
In June 1900 a Scottish terrier foaming at the mouth was secured by the police in Winchester Avenue, off Willesden Lane. Its owner reluctantly agreed her pet could be shot by a resident, who owned a revolver. British Pathe Newsreels has a silent film clip dating from about 1914, of a muzzled dog, entitled, “Who said “Rabies”? Fido strongly disapproves of the muzzling order!“
Fritz, or later as he called himself Fred Kormis, was born in Frankfurt Germany in 1897. Shortly before the outbreak of WW2, he came to London where he lived and worked for almost fifty years in West Hampstead and Kilburn.
Fritz was fourteen when he began an apprenticeship in a workshop specializing in decorative sculpture and mouldings. In 1914 he won a scholarship to the Frankfurt Art School but was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army when WWI broke out. He was wounded and captured by the Russians in 1915 and sent to a Siberian prisoner-of-war camp. This terrible experience provided the inspiration for much of his later work. Kormis escaped from the camp and returned to Frankfurt about 1920 where he earned his living as a portrait sculptor. He married Rachel in 1924. As a Jew, Kormis was no longer allowed to work once Hitler came to power in 1933, so he and Rachel went to the Netherlands and then to England in 1934. Here Fritz anglicised his name to Fred.
Kormis lived in 41 Broadhurst Gardens (1935-1937) and then at number 9, Sherriff Road Studios (1938-1940). His studio was destroyed in a raid during 1940, but we don’t know its location. Sherriff Road never experienced any serious bomb damage, but many of the houses in Broadhurst Gardens were demolished during a September raid. Fred may still have been renting space there as reports speak of his ‘larger works’ being lost. Having moved briefly to Hampstead Garden Suburb, he was at 3b Greville Place by 1944, where he stayed until his death in 1986.
3b Greville Place today
Built about 1822, number 3 Greville Place was a large and extended property, home to artist Sir Frank Dicksee and prima ballerina Madame Lydia Kyasht, before being split into several flats and studios in the 1930s. John Hutton, artist and glass engraver (Number 3a) and Dolf Reiser, artist and fellow refugee from the Nazis (Number 3i) were neighbours of Kormis. Briefly (1964-1967) Kormis also rented number 3h.
Once settled in London , Kormis’ reputation continued to grow. About 1945 Willesden Council commissioned a sculpture for the new Church End redevelopment. In 2006 Reg Freeson donated the sculpture ‘Angel Wings’ by Kormis to Queen’s Park. It stands in the quiet garden, in the south east corner of the Park.
Angel Wings, in Queens Park
Kormis was especially well known for his bronze portrait medallions which were highly regarded. Subjects ranged from politicians to royalty and entertainers, and included Edward VIII, Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin. Kormis exhibited a total of 41 pieces at the Royal Academy .
Winston Churchill, by Kormis, 1941
Waiting for a life dream to come true
Since escaping from Siberia , Kormis had been working on studies for a memorial to prisoners of war, and later, to include victims of the concentration camps. His unsuccessful design for the British Holocaust memorial was a beautiful figure with two arms stretching up from the earth; (he gave a model of the work to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem ). A bequest from a relative in Germany allowed Kormis to move his dream forward. Sculpting a series of figures, he looked to install them in a building bombed in WW2, but the search for a suitable site proved fruitless until his friend and leader of Brent Council, Reg Freeson, suggested the figures might find a home in the Borough. Kormis wanted the work to be erected in a depressed area, to act as an incentive to continued improvements. Various locations were put forward: Willesden High Road, Canterbury Road, Granville Road and Gladstone Park. Nothing was decided until February 1967, when Freeson (then an Alderman and MP), told the Council’s planning department, “This is a very generous gift, I think it is one of the finest pieces of work I have seen”. The Council decided to accept the memorial figures but no site was agreed.
The following month, the local paper interviewed an impatient Kormis at his Greville Place studio. Four of the figures were now complete, the sculptor explaining that each was intended to illustrate an aspect of his war experiences. “First there is the numb shock of realizing you are a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. Then there is the dawning awareness of your predicament and the primitive conditions. The next phase is the thought of escape and freedom. After that many succumb to despair and a sense of hopelessness. Others overcome their dejection and manage to escape.”
Kormis had two designs in mind for the fifth and central figure – a figure with outstretched arms, alive and hopeful for the future, or a seated woman, face in hands, sunk in deep grief. “I prefer this but I must admit it is a very sad study. It could be too depressing.” But before going any further he needed to know where the memorial would be placed, so he could adapt the design accordingly.
Gladstone Park Memorial, standing figure and three of the seated figuresGladstone Park, four seated figuresMemorial plaque
Brent decided a “shabby site” would be unworthy of the piece and chose to place the memorial in Gladstone Park, in a position chosen by Kormis. The five male, fibre glass figures were unveiled on May 11, 1969. Sadly their condition deteriorated over the years and the site became neglected. When the sculptures were graffitied with bright yellow paint, the simple ‘repair’ consisted of over painting them in matt black. Then in December 2003 the figures were seriously vandalized: all were decapitated and one sustained further severe damage.
Fortunately, as part of the Heritage Lottery Fund restoration of the park, there was funding available to properly restore the memorial. A search revealed four of the vandalized heads thrown into surrounding undergrowth. One was missing but archive material allowed it to be replicated. Under expert guidance the figures were split open, foam filler removed and their internal structure replaced with stainless steel. The black paint was cleaned off and their original bronze finish restored, the resulting increase in definition allowing their features to be clearly seen for the first time in many years. The memorial is located close to Dollis Hill Lane , just a short walk downhill from the car park. Today the bronze finish has deteriorated but the impression given by the group, in particular the seated figures is very powerful. The standing figure is perhaps a version of the one Kormis described in his interview.
Rachel Kormis died in December 1971 and Fred died on 17 April 1986, still living and working at Greville Place. The couple are buried in adjacent graves at Bushey Cemetery.
In 1888 Jack the Ripper had terrified the East End of London. His story haunted people for years later and letters signed by the Ripper were still being received by the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in October 1889. People across London were fearful.
On 15 December 1884 Charles Burcham Farnell a 36 year old commercial traveller, married 24 year old Edith Turnor at St Peter’s church in West Hackney. They lived at Church Road Hackney where their first daughter Mary Eleanor was born in 1886.
Frederick Percy ran a tobacconist’s shop at 143 Kilburn High Road, between Glengall Road and Priory Park Road, and let out rooms above the business. In December 1888 Charles rented the third floor and the Farnell family moved in. A second daughter Beatrice Isabel was born the following year.
At 6.00 on Wednesday evening the 28 October 1889, Mrs Percy heard moans coming from the Farnell’s rooms at the top of the house. Very concerned, she ran out into Kilburn High Road and found a policeman who had just passed the shop on patrol. She said it sounded like a murder was taking place. Police Constable James 78X and two other PCs, went up the stairs and burst through the locked door. He was horrified to find three year old Mary Farnell and seven months old Beatrice lying on the bed with cords tied tightly round their necks. He cut the cords and summoned medical help. Their mother Edith called out,
‘Don’t cut the cord. For God’s sake, please let them die and then they will be happy’.
She repeated this over and over again and wept bitterly. The policeman applied artificial respiration to the two babies. Ten minutes later Dr James Smith arrived from nearby Gascony Avenue. Using artificial respiration and stimulants, they managed to revive the children who were taken to hospital.
Inspector Cooper arrived and arrested Edith for attempted murder. He said she was in a very agitated state saying over and over again, ‘Don’t let Jack the Ripper get my girls.’
In court a letter which Edith had written that afternoon was read out. She said that for the last seven or eight months she was not herself and she believed that people were going to kill her. Then she feared that she was becoming consumptive, and was frightened of what would happen to her children after she had gone. Her husband Charles was away for some time because of his job as a commercial traveller, and Edith thought she was going to die. She ended by saying she’d seen a ghost a few nights ago, she was out of her mind and that her mother had died insane. At the Old Bailey Edith was judged to be guilty but insane, and sent to Broadmoor to be held at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.
What happened later?
Thankfully, Mary and Beatrice recovered completely and went to live with their grandfather, Joseph Kirby Farnell in Acton. Before going bankrupt in 1851, Joseph had traded as a linen draper and silk mercer in London and Shrewsbury, where Charles Farnell was born. After his agency for hiring servants was declared bankrupt in 1863, Joseph set up as a fancy goods and toy manufacturer. Charles worked as commercial traveller for the family business. After Joseph’s death in 1891, Mary and Eleanor moved in with their uncle and aunt, Henry Kirby Farnell and his sister Agnes. Henry and Agnes took over the family toy making business and bought a large 18th century mansion in Acton called ‘The Elms’.
The Elms, Acton
They built a factory in the grounds to produce soft toys, including Teddy Bears, under the trade name ‘Alpha’. Their first teddy bear was made in 1908 and the early Farnell bears closely resembled those produced by the German firm of Steiff. In 1926 the ‘Alpha’ bears became very popular and one was bought from Harrods for Christopher Robin Milne and of course this became ‘Winnie the Pooh’. There is a local connection as his father A.A. Milne, grew up in Kilburn. See our book, ‘The Greville Estate’, Camden History Society.
Farnell’s ‘Alpha’ Teddy Bear
The Farnell company continued to produce teddy bears, including Rupert Bear, until 1968. A plaque was unveiled in March 2012. Today The Elms is TwfordSecondary School.
Mary Farnell never married and died at The Elms in 1923, aged 36. She left £7,778 in her will (worth today about £350,000). Beatrice Farnell married Lt. Allatt Hollins in 1920 and they had five children. She died in Sevenoaks in 1965 and left £9,598 (today worth about £150,000).
Their father Charles Farnell, left Kilburn and continued working in the family business, as he’s shown as a toy maker in 1891, living in Stoke Newington. By 1911 he had retired and moved to Hunstanton in Norfolk. Charles died in 1918 in Docking, which is near Hunstanton, and didn’t leave a will.
Postpartum Psychosis
This is a very sad story. Today, Edith would probably have been diagnosed as suffering from postpartum psychosis (PP), an extreme form of postnatal depression. PP affects about 1 in 1000 mothers and may occur soon after the birth of the child or up to several years later. The symptoms which Edith described are typical of PP: the inability to sleep, non-stop talking, delusions, hallucinations and mania. These days, with medication the vast majority of women recover fully. Sadly Edith Farnell was never released from Broadmoor. She died there in 1933, aged 74, after spending 44 years at the Asylum.
Broadmoor Asylum
A Tragic Event in West Hampstead
In October 1896, a tragic event that also involved post-natal depression happened in West Hampstead. William Goddard Hughes was renting three rooms on West End Lane, at Number 1 The Green. William was a 32 year old farmer’s son turned butcher from Wiltshire. In December 1895, he married Elizabeth Emily Wise, the daughter of an accountant, then living in Bristol. The couple moved to London where their son William Joseph was born in Hampstead the following February.
On the morning of October 7 William found Elizabeth and his eight month old son lying dead, with their throats cut. At the inquest he told the Coroner that he’d known Elizabeth for about two and a half years, and she was a strong, active woman. But it slowly emerged that looking after the baby was taxing her ability to cope. William said he didn’t think Elizabeth had delusions but admitted she appeared depressed at times. They’d had many disturbed nights recently because the baby was teething.
That morning William had got up as usual and made breakfast. Elizabeth had come into the kitchen to light the fire but when William asked if he should carry the heavy cradle downstairs before he went to work, his wife said no, she could manage. He promised to look in during the morning, to see if the baby needed more medicine. He returned at 8.30am and was surprised to find the kitchen empty so went upstairs to the bedroom, where he discovered the bodies lying on the bed.
Elizabeth had left William a short note on the living room table: ‘all my money that they leave me you must have, my dear husband.’ There was also an unfinished letter to her sister, which was rather more revealing:
‘I’m a bit off again. Worry it must be and nervousness makes me like it. I can’t get to do anything when I’m like this.’
At the inquest Elizabeth’s father George Wise said his daughter had frequently suffered from depression and that his eldest son was currently in an asylum. The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of murder and suicide while of unsound mind, and passed on their condolences to William and Elizabeth’s family.
What happened later?
Elizabeth and William were buried at Hampstead Cemetery on Monday, 11 October. Mother and son were in one coffin, the child lying in his mother’s arms. It was raining hard, but many neighbours came to watch the hearse depart from West End Green and even more gathered at the Cemetery.
William stayed on at West Hampstead for a few years, moving into a new house in Sumatra Road which he shared with his widowed mother. But he’d returned to his roots in Wiltshire by 1909 when he married school teacher Mary Wilkins. The 1911 census shows the couple in Cricklade, with a young family and William working as a farmer.
Numbers 1-3 The Green were redeveloped as a garage, and then converted to provide premises for today’s Pizza Express, opposite West End Green.
Here are two stories with newspaper illustrations about young men in Kilburn who acted badly while under the influence of drink.
The Amorous Carpenter
In October 1897, ‘amorous young carpenter’ Frank Pelham was in court for assaulting an unnamed, ‘well-dressed, good-looking young woman’on the Kilburn High Road, outside Brondesbury Railway station. It was around midnight and she’d been waiting for the Cricklewood bus when Frank came up to her and said, ‘Good evening, dear.’
She didn’t know him so she walked away saying, ‘please leave me alone, don’t follow me’, but Frank persisted and tried to catch hold of her. The woman hit Frank with a small parcel she was carrying, but before she could get away, he kicked her ‘in the body’. She managed to find a policeman and the magistrate commended her courage in getting Frank into custody and being willing to give evidence against him in court.
Frank entered a plea of ‘guilty’, saying he acted under the ‘fluence’, in other words, he was drunk.
The magistrate took a hard line, saying,
‘It was a monstrous thing to stop a respectable young woman in the street and strike her after she showed your addresses were not congenial to her. Such a case must be dealt with severely as a warning to others.’
Frank got two months in prison with hard labour. The son of a carpenter, Frank had followed the same trade and lived in the Kilburn neighbourhood for most of his life. He was born there in 1868; was living in Paddington (1871); 6 Palmerston Road (1881 & 1891). At the time of the incident he lived at 82 Iverson Road and 23 Iverson Road (1901 and 1911). This was his address when he died in 1920. He was buried at Hampstead Cemetery in what was then called a ‘common grave,’ containing multiple, unrelated burials.
Let’s have a snowball fight!
On a cold evening in early March 1898, Mrs Florence Moule was on her way home to Kentish Town from Kilburn, where she’d been on business. It was 11pm as she walked along Belsize Road and met Charles Crossley, a 27 year old student, who lodged in the road. He walked straight up to Florence, who said in court,
‘That hepushed her against a wall and disarranged her clothes. With some difficulty she wrested herself from his grasp, and thereupon he picked up a snowball and threw it at her, hitting her in the back of the neck.’
Florence screamed loudly as she ran away. The noise alerted two policemen and Florence fell exhausted into their arms. They challenged Charles who was in hot pursuit, ready and armed with two more snowballs! Charles was very drunk and used ‘vile language’ to Florence, even attempting to assault her in front of PC Davis.
Charles said he couldn’t remember anything about the incident, but ‘if he did anything improper he was very sorry.’ As Charles was clearly well educated and respectable, the magistrate concluded that his sentence could not be less than a 40 shillings fine (about £175 today), whereupon Florence fainted, and had to be carried out of court.
The RSPCA clinic at Cambridge Road is still open. The main door is flanked by two marble memorial panels. They record that 484,143 animals were killed by enemy action, disease or accident and that 725,216 animals were treated by the RSPCA during WW1. We now know the overall mortality figures were far higher, with an estimated 8 million horses dying in WW1. 
The horse is the animal most often associated with the European conflict. In 1914, the British and German armies had a cavalry force of some 100,000 men, but the development of trench warfare rendered cavalry charges unviable as a military tactic. But horses and mules were still needed to transport materials and supplies and to pull guns and ambulances. The animals also had to be fed, watered and tended. Strong ties developed between horse and rider. The Daily Mail on 31st December 1914, carried an article by a Welsh soldier serving in the Royal Field Artillery. He’d been with his horses for several years before war broke out. He said;
A female adder with the distinctive zigzag pattern[/caption]
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