King Eddies park in better days

Guest blog by Philip Grant
 

A recent blog LINK  told of the sad decline of Wembley’s King Edward VII Park, but this reminded me of some information and old photos that I could share with you from the park’s early years.

Wembley as a place has existed since Saxon times, with the first documentary record of “Wemba lea” (Wemba’s clearing in the forest) dating from AD825. My late Wembley History Society colleague, Len Snow LINK  was fond of saying that football fans, singing their way to Wembley Stadium, had actually got the name right! But it was not until 1894 that Wembley became a separate local government area, splitting off from Harrow as Wembley Urban District, and although small in population (only around 4,500 people lived here in 1901), it had some big ideas.

One of the schemes to provide a better place to live for its residents was to open its own municipal public park, and in 1913 it bought 26 acres of farmland in Blind Lane (not far from its developing High Road) for £8,050. By the next summer the park was ready, and on 4 July 1914 it was officially opened by Queen Alexandra (by then the Queen Mother), and named King Edward VII Park in memory of her late husband.

These first two photos were taken on the day of the opening, with many of Wembley’s citizens there in their “Sunday best” clothes to enjoy the event. The musical entertainment from the bandstand was almost certainly provided by the Wembley Town Band, which had been set up in 1910, with its smart green and silver uniforms paid for by local benefactor, Titus Barham. The school next to the park had opened in 1911 as Blind Lane Council School (the first set up in the area by Wembley Urban District Council, rather than Middlesex County Council), and with the change in the name of the road to mark the opening, it became Park Lane Primary. Like every good park, King Eddie’s had a children’s playground!

Some WM readers may recognise these photographs from Geoffrey Hewlett’s  “Images of London” book on Wembley (Tempus Publishing, 2002), and they are from a remarkable collection built up by Wembley History Society from the 1950’s onwards, including many donated by an important local photographer before he died in 1958, which is now held at Brent Museum and Archives.

These pictures were almost certainly taken by that photographer, Kuno Reitz, who was born in Munich in 1876, but moved to England in 1911, spending most of the rest of his life as a freelance photographer in Wembley. Just a month after King Edward VII Park opened, and these excellent photos were taken, England declared war on Germany, entering the “Great War” a week after it had first begun, because Germany had invaded neutral Belgium. Reitz was classed as an enemy alien, and spent at least part of the war years building roads, possibly for army camps and training grounds, in Northumberland.

Luckily, he returned to Wembley after the war, and the last photo is one he definitely took, for a “Wembley Guide” booklet published by the Urban District Council in 1930. The clothes may have changed a little by the inter-war years, but it was still a great place for children to play. Let’s hope that, despite the decline caused by cost-cutting and contracting out, the people of Wembley can still enjoy King Eddie’s Park for another century or more.

SUN-BATHING WAR Riotous Scenes on the Banks of the Welsh Harp

Indignation was rife among local residents during the weekend at the proceedings of sun-bathers in a field near 'Sandy Cut', Cool Oak Lane, Kingsbury, and spirited protests by Hendon and Kingsbury householders culminated in violent scenes on Saturday evening and Sunday.

The sun-bathers, who are, for the most part, non-residents in this are, are members of the Sun-Ray Club and the New Life Society.  They sun-bathe on the grass near the edge of the Welsh Harp reservoir in various states of semi-nudity, while notices are chalked in surrounding trees stating, 'Sun-bathing ground. Please keep away.'

On Saturday a number of nude women women bathers were present with the men, and so strong was the objection of a hostile crowd that the followers of this cult were ultimately attacked, and found it necessary to seek police protection.

A resident of Wakeman's Hill Avenue wrote to Kingsbury Council:

Why is nude bathing permitted in the Welsh Harp Reservoir without some enclosure, where sexual maniacs can perform out of view of the more respectable members of the community? On Sunday evening last and myself were walking across from Old Kingsbury Church to Edgware Road, and were half-way over when we came upon a bunch of stark naked men hanging around the water side. Hardly a pleasant sight for a man to have to pass with his wife!

The attack on the sun-bathers commenced on Saturday, when some 40 men and women lay on the grass near the water's edges. Some wore no clothes; others wore slips or bathing drawers, Passers-by tooking objection, particularly on the ground that there were children in the vicinity, and soon a large crowd gathered, excitement growing until jeers and insults gave way to blows but no one appeared to be seriously injured.

Captain H.H. Vincent (secretary of the movement) was attacked by a woman but evaded her blows. There were cries of 'Duck him in the lake!' 'Drive them out of Hendon!' and Mr F.G.Biddle of Bell Lane, Hendon declared that he would 'get the lot of you locked up for indecent behaviour in public.' When the sun-bathers managed to get partially dressed they left the field.

A cartoon comment at the time

 Captain Vincent afterwards stated that the crowd appeared to take objection to one of the women, who wore nothing above the waist.

We put up notices warning people that sun bathing is taking place but they will come and stare at us, and some of them even take photographs. Dress or undress is optional with us. The objectors are ignorant people, with whom it is useless to argue.

The above events took place on 28th and 29th June 1930 and this is an edited account  from the Hendon and Finchley Times. My mother, who died earlier this year, and lived in Church Drive close to the the Welsh Harp, told me that she and her her sister, when children, used to hide in the bushes and spy on the sun bathers. It was their only sex education...

Thanks to Phil Grant for digging up the press coverage. There is an account of  the riots in a beautifully illustrated  new book entitled Welsh Harp Reservoir Through Time by Geoffrey Hewlett. The Welsh Harp has a colourful past including horse and greyhound racing, water skiing, motorboat racing, regattas, rowing competitions between neighbouring boroughs, ice skating and even an escaped bear!


Welsh Harp Reservoir Through Time, Geoffrey Hewlett, Amberley Publishing, £14.99 Available from the Willesden Bookshop