FROM October 2009 and into the year 2010, the College of North West London is celebrating its 75th anniversary on the main Willesden site at the corner of Dudden Hill Lane and Denzil Road.
NONAGENARIAN Ted Newell never studied at Willesden Technical College, the predecessor of the College of North West London, but the technology courses it teaches brought back many happy memories when he dropped in for a visit.
A FORMER student of Willesden Tech during the war, and a classmate and friend of Kenneth Lewis (see separate story), Sir Peter George Yarranton, who died in 2003 aged 79, was a leading figure in the world of sport, as well as in the oil and gas business.
CHARTERED surveyor Stuart Randall BSc (Hons) MRICS spotted the College website while browsing the internet, and sent us the following memory from the 1990s.
KENNETH LEWIS, aged 85, WTC student 1938-40
Kenneth Lewis, from Taplow, Bucks, was brought up in Ealing. He arrived at Willesden College aged 14 in Jan 1938 and left in Nov 1940.
AT THE last count, Willesden Technical College had 797 members on the Friends Reunited website and Willesden College – same thing – had 129 members. Sister college Kilburn Polytechnic had 766 members, plus 119 for Kilburn College – same thing - including the Colindale Annexe.
SCIENCE students and staff of CNWL have put together a display entitled '1934 in Science' to commemorate inventions that occurred in the year that the College of North West London was first opened.
THE FRIENDS Reunited website records details of nearly 900 people who attended Kilburn Polytechnic – also known as Kilburn College - between the late 1930s and the post-Millennium era.
WILLESDEN College of Technology (now the College of North West London) opened on its Willesden site on October 16 1934. But what else happened on that date?
AVANT-garde Savile Row tailor Tommy Nutter (1943-1992) made suits for the Beatles and counted Cilla Black and her husband Bobby Willis among his clients – but he originally started his career at Willesden Technical College.
IN THE YEAR 1934 - 75 years ago – sterling was king, with one pound the equivalent of five dollars. A gallon of gas in the US cost ten cents and a loaf of bread eight cents.
A FAMOUS biochemical engineer and world-renowned scientist, who spent five decades bringing pioneering scientific research to the wider world, failed his 11-plus, but went on to success after studying at Willesden Technical College – now the College of North West London.
WILLESDEN Technical College opened its doors on October 12th 1934 - part of Middlesex County Council’s effort to meet the great demand for technical education throughout the country in the 1930s.
AN outstanding School of the Arts covering art and design, media, fashion and performing arts is one of the modern features of the Willesden site. But years earlier, the Willesden Technical College site included a previous incarnation - a School of Art so prestigious that it rivalled some of the best in the country. It was founded originally in Kilburn and transferred to Willesden in 1934.
FLAMBOYANT eyepatch-toting 60s rock star Johnny Kidd – of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates fame – studied at Willesden Technical College in the late 40s/early 50s. Kidd [real name Fred Heath] was born in Shrewsbury Road, Willesden, on 23 November 1935, the youngest of three children.
IN the summer of 1948, the Olympic Games came to London – or Wembley, to be exact. And Willesden Technical College played its part by allowing its site to be used as the headquarters of the teams from Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.
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