History
Kingsbury was historically a small parish in the Hundred of Gore and county of Middlesex. Until the nineteenth century it was largely rural with only scattered settlements. Oliver Goldsmith lived at Hyde Farm in Kingsbury from 1771 to 1774. David William Murray, 3rd Earl of Mansfield was buried at St. Andrew's churchyard in 1840.
Although it lay close to London, development started slowly, and it was not until after World War I that the district became built up. An aircraft industry was established in the part of Kingsbury adjacent to Hendon aerdrome during the war, while the road network was improved to cater for the British Empire Exhibition in nearby Wembley in 1924. The number of inhabited houses in the civil parish increased from just 140 in 1901 to 3,937 in 1931. By 1951 this had risen to 11,776. Between 1921 and 1931 Kingsbury's population increased by 796%.
John Logie Baird's experimental transmissions from UK to Berlin, Germany were transmitted from the stable block of Kingsbury Manor, now the Veterans Club in Roe Green Park.
From 1923 to 1979 Kingsbury Road was the location of the Vanden Plas specialist motor body works, body makers for Bentley and later part of Austin, BMC, and British Leyland. The site is now Kingsbury Trading Estate.
In 1894 Kingsbury was included in the urban district of Wembley. However as Kingsbury had only three councillors on the urban district council to Wembley's nine, Kingsbury's councillors felt the needs of the area were not well-served. In 1900 Kingsbury became a separate urban district with six councillors. The new council was immediately involved in controversy and in 1906 it failed to make a rate or meet its financial commitments. Following an inquiry initiated by ratepayers the council was increased to nine councillors, although personal difficulties between councillors continued for some years.
In 1934 the Kingsbury Urban District was abolished and merged once more in Wembley Urban District. The urban district became a municipal borough in 1937 and in 1965 the area became part of the London Borough of Brent.
The first series of BBC children's drama Grange hill was filmed at Kingsbury high.
The BBC play Bar Mitzvah Boy is a British television play, written by Jack Rosenthal and originally transmitted in the Play for Today anthology series on BBC1. Broadcast on 14 September 1976, the 75-minute production was directed by Michael Tuchner and produced by Graeme MacDonald. This was filmed in a house in Valley Drive Kingsbury.
Today, Kingsbury is an important settlement for Indian and Romanian comunities.
Read more about this topic: Kingsbury
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In every election in American history both parties have their clichés. The party that has the clichés that ring true wins.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)