Updates to Chelsea History and Studies

Here are all the updates for the research and writing of Chelsea History and Studies. As should already be clear all of this work is open access and a gift to the people of Chelsea and everyone connected with the borough from Professor Tim Crook- brought up and educated in Chelsea.

The work is not funded, sponsored and carries no advertising. So if you like anything you read and would like to make a donation- however little, it would be enormously appreciated.

I am a pensioner and from my limited income have extensive expenses in terms of research, subscriptions, travel and historical document buying etc in order to be able to continue researching and writing the content.

I hope to produce some books derived from the postings and will keep you informed when they are released. Any sales from these will also help me to continue with the work.

Also an apology. As I get older, I do get slower! Sorry. But I am doing my best to write as much as I can. The spirit is always there but the tapping on the keyboard struggles to keep pace.

Update 14th April 2026

Two major new postings. The gentleman’s valet from Chelsea who survived the Titanic disaster telling the story of Chelsea valet William John Mellors from 8 Christchurch Terrace who miraculously survived the sinking and has been somewhat ‘lost to history’ in the sense that he has not featured in the prominent books, films, documentaries and dramatisations of the event.

I have researched his life in Chelsea and that of his family and describe how he did make his fortune in the USA- despite the terrible experience of the sinking which he survived despite suffering from frostbite and exposure.

Chelsea’s Lady Mayor who went up in a Hydrogen balloon in Coronation Week 1953 in high winds from the Royal Hospital and ended up in a field in Sussex. I love this story. The headline describes the incredibly dutiful and brave Miss Mary Katherine Cook who was sixty five years old and agreed to go on this very treacherous charity balloon stunt.

She was a hugely popular Mayor of Chelsea and worked extremely hard attending and supporting local events and organisations. The warnings were there when the local weekly paper advertised for 15 robust and strong men volunteers to help with the launching of the balloon coming over from Holland. If anyone has a photograph of Miss Cook, or indeed of the balloon event in the Royal Hospital grounds on 6th June 1953 that you would permit me to use, do please get in touch.

Images of the Merchant Navy plaque commemoration of the youngest serviceman from Chelsea to die in the Second World War. I have taken these at the memorial in Tower Hill and added these to the tribute to deck boy Anthony Charles Sutcliffe Mayhew who was only 15 when the motor tanker vessel he was serving in was torpedoed and sunk by U-Boat on 20th May 1941 while in convoy HX-126 south of Cape Farewell, Greenland in the North Atlantic.

Tony Mayhew was the son of Henry Percy and Agnes Elizabeth Mayhew, of Sutton Dwellings, Chelsea, London. His brother Denis John also died on active service during the Second World War when in the RAF. Tony and his brother Denis are commemorated in the posting Chelsea’s World War Two casualties in RAF, Army, Royal Navy and Merchant Navy services

I have also succeeded in identifying the Picture Post photographer responsible for capturing the legendary ARP Warden Jo Oakman in the trench shelter of Paultons Square during the Blitz of 1940. Very evocative images were captured of Chelsea people in the shelter in the article titled ‘Shelter Life’ published 26th October 1940. This is in the posting The Paultons Square trench shelter tragedy- October 20th 1940.

The location and shelter were not identified in the article due to war-time restrictions and Picture Post photographers were not identified largely because many of them were Jewish German, Austrian and Hungarian emigrés with families under occupation and at risk of reprisal. The Paultons Square shelter photographs were taken by Zoltán Glass [1903-1981]. I am so pleased to give him credit now for these wonderful pictures and will be doing a special featured posting on Zoltán and his photography work in Chelsea sometime in the future.

Update 4th November 2025

As Armistice Day is approaching this year, it is a great privilege to express special thanks to Philip Wyatt and his family who took the trouble to brief me on the fact that Philip’s uncle, Frank James Wyatt, was a casualty of the Second World War from Chelsea, and was killed in action while serving in the Western Desert with the Eighth Army on 5th June 1942.

It would have been impossible to know this independently as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records provide no information about his Chelsea family and origin.

His family have given permission for the use of Frank’s photograph, a letter sent to his father from an officer in his Battalion and the text of a presentation Frank’s sister Mary made to the Servite School in Chelsea in the late 1990s.

You can find out more on the story of Frank and his family in the ongoing and developing posting Chelsea’s World War Two casualties in RAF, Army, Royal Navy and Merchant Navy services.

Hundreds of fallen heroes are commemorated. To find Frank do a search with the name ‘Wyatt’ within the page, or simply scroll down the chronology of casualties to 5th June 1942.

Update 3rd May 2025

In Chelsea Blitz time line 1940 to 1945: incidents and casualties I am continuing to develop a detailed chronology of every air raid incident and a biography of each and every civilian and military casualty of ‘enemy action’ on the people of Chelsea.

The tablet monument on Dovehouse Green commemorates the 457 civilian war dead. My research and writing now sets out a total of 573 people if we include the US servicemen killed at Turk’s Row, Chelsea residents killed in Blitz incidents outside the Borough and those injured and sent to hospitals elsewhere in London and outside for medical treatment who did not survive.

In Chelsea’s World War Two casualties in RAF, Army, Royal Navy and Merchant Navy services I have researched and begun profiles on 321 service casualties from Chelsea while on active service between 1939 and 1947. The losses were greatest in 1944 with 76 fatal casualties. Was/were there (a) Chelsea casualty (ies) in your family that I have omitted? Please get in touch and let me know if this is the case.

Update 28th April 2025

Congratulations to The Chelsea Citizen, a dynamic new hyper-local newspaper launching in the spring 2025. Founder & Editor Rob McGibbon, Chelsea resident for 30 years and 40 years a respected and campaigning journalist. This is a significant and important development in the history of newspapers and journalism in Chelsea. Whole-hearted support from Chelsea History and Studies. Sign up for the Chelsea Citizen Newsletter.

Update 15th April 2025

The completion of research and writing of the posting on the deadly V2 rocket strike on the Royal Hospital in Chelsea at breakfast time on Wednesday 3rd January 1945. There were five fatalities and it was somewhat miraculous more people were not killed.

The detailed biographies of In Pensioner Edward Joseph Gummer and Mrs Camilla Margery May contain powerful narratives of individual and family contributions to service during war-time.

Both were also touched with devastating family tragedy before they were killed in what turned out to be the last enemy action air raid on Chelsea during the Second World War.

Update 3rd April 2025

A new posting ‘Ships called ‘Chelsea’ during the Second World War’– Two ships bearing the name of “Chelsea” gave service during the Second World War. H.M.S. Chelsea was a destroyer and had a long, extensive and active role hunting submarines and protecting convoys, cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers. S.S. Chelsea fought the Battle of the Atlantic by shipping vitally needed cargo to keep Britain in the war. One would survive the conflict and be donated to the Russians. The other would be sunk with the loss of twenty four members of her crew. My historical research indicates a distinct lack of understanding and appreciation of the work, sacrifice and memory of the merchant steamship bearing Chelsea’s name. I am hoping my writing and this posting corrects this omission.

There has been a lot of new work on Chelsea’s World War Two casualties in RAF, Army, Royal Navy and Merchant Navy services. In particular, I would like to highlight my biographical research and writing on Fusilier Albert Edward Savage who was killed on 10th May 1940- the day Nazi Germany invaded France and the low countries and Winston Churchill became wartime Prime Minister. Albert had a tough life and died aged 48, having fathered 14 children and fought in the Royal Navy during World War One. He was working class, living in considerable poverty, but ready to stand up for working men’s rights and dignity- even to the extent of being sent to jail for breaking a policeman’s whistle and knocking off his helmet during a near riot in the World’s End at the end of the General Strike in 1926.

Update 25th February 2025

Full detailed briefing on The Special Operations Executive house in Chelsea wrecked by bombing in WW2 at 15 Basil Street, Knightsbridge which took a direct hit and killed three agents about to be sent to France and a Free French Forces officer has been published- subject to proofing.

The full narrative and background of Jean Albert Garnier, Nicolas Popoff and Jacques Edwin Fresco is provided after the examination of their previously secret SOE personnel and training files. The papers raise as many questions as they answer about the true background and identity of Popoff alias Powell. The Free French officer Richard Goff is equally mysterious.

He appears to have no official record filed with either the British or French authorities.

Moving film of the aftermath of the awful bombing of the Guinness Trust buildings in the West End by the Movietone newsreel company which was recorded on the 24th February 1944 has been added to Chelsea Blitz time line 1940 to 1945: incidents and casualties. The more detailed narrative and analysis of this haunting and deadly air raid is in active progress and expected to be published soon.

Update 22nd February 2025

Three more victims of the bombing of the air raid shelter in the crypt of the Holy Redeemer Church in Upper Cheyne Row on 14th September 1940 have been identified and profiled. They were 63 year old Joseph Edmund Norris, Percy Philip Hourahan, 48, and Dagobert Trebitsch who was 77 when he died. They passed away after being taken to hospitals many miles from the Borough of Chelsea, in one case in St Albans and another in Ashford, Middlesex.

I have also researched and profiled the war correspondents Noel Monks and Mary Welsh [later Hemingway] who were living at 50 Upper Cheyne Row at the time, though it is possible they were away on assignment on the day of the bombing.

Update 19th January 2025

New posting (subjected to proofing and corrections) The only Luftwaffe pilot to bale out over Chelsea during WW2 Up until now virtually all of the writing about the Blitz in Chelsea has understandably been about the grief, suffering and terror experienced by the people of Chelsea. This posting investigates the people who were doing the bombing with a focus on the only German airman I have been able to establish who parachuted into Chelsea after being shot down during the Second World War.

I also believe I am the first to have been able to actually identify him after finding a declassified RAF Intelligence file in the National Archives. He was 22 year old Leutnant Günther Sissimato. He actually identified himself as such when walking up the steps from the foreshore of the River Thames to be greeted by actress and model Theodora FitzGibbon and her then lover, the Chelsea artist Peter Rose Pulham, but neither could remember his name and Luftwaffe number largely because it was so unusual and given all the noise, stress and chaos of the situation.

What we do know from Theodora’s written account, published in 1982, and those of others; particularly the ARP Warden Leslie Matthews who headed Post Don in what used to be Cook’s Ground School in Glebe Place, is that Pulham saved Pilot Sissimoto’s life.

Two parachute mines (not dropped from Sissimato’s Junkers Ju. 88) had blown up the Chelsea Old Church and surrounding houses, and destroyed the stretch of buildings in Cheyne Walk from Crosby Hall and Danvers Street to the bottom of Old Church Street.

When Sissimato baled out (the other 3 members of his crew also landed safely in other parts of London) rescuers were finding dead bodies and picking up body parts.

Somebody (hitherto never been identified) was so outraged he kicked Sissimato up the backside, and grabbed the Walther P38 semi-automatic pistol from the leg pocket of his flying suit. Pulham wrestled the gun from the man’s hand and there is no doubt he saved the young German pilot from summary execution on the Chelsea Embankment.

It is such a humanitarian moment in all this horror that two police officers were able to escort Sissimato through the continuing bombing and fires of Blitz-strewn Chelsea to the police station in Lucan Place. Matthews remembered the paradox of the scene reminding him of a man being arrested for being drunk and disorderly on a Saturday night and being taken to sober up in the the cells until the following morning.

Theodora FitzGibbon and Peter Rose Pulham were so worried for their ‘German Parachutist’ that they actually followed him and the two police officers all the way to the police station to make sure no harm came to him.

Inside they were given mugs of tea while giving their statements of what happened. These were most likely spilled to the ground when the explosion from another parachute mine blew up in the middle of nearby Cranmer Court, missing the police station by about 50 yards.

Update 13th January 2025

New posting (subject to proofing and corrections) How celebrated ‘spymistress’ Vera Atkins helped protect Chelsea during the Blitz. Vera lived with her mother in flat 725 of Nell Gwynn House between 1940 and 1946. She volunteered and worked as a part-time ARP Warden between October 1940 and April 1943.

She would have attended the worst bombing incidents in her beat- from Warden Post ‘G’ based in the basement of Nell Gwynn House.

These were roughly all the roads and streets between Sloane Street, Sloane Square, King’s Road, Markham and Elystan Streets, Fulham Road and Walton Street and Lennox Gardens.

She was trained in First Aid for bombing victims, fire-fighting techniques and dealing with gas cannisters if Hitler had decided to drop chemical weapons during the Blitz.

It is not widely known that it was her ARP work in Chelsea which led to her coming to the notice of the Special Operations Executive. In March 1941, an ARP Warden friend asked her to be ‘the fourth’ in a game of Bridge at the house of a secretary in the SOE in nearby Thurloe Square.

A month later she was invited to attend an interview at number 64 Baker Street.

According to the author William Stevenson, she was already an agent for William Stephenson (Agent Intrepid) of the British Security Coordination in North America and she had been undertaking missions in Europe collecting intelligence passed on to Winston Churchill during the 1930s before he became Prime Minister.

Update 2nd January 2025

The New Year begins with the launch of a large and complex posting (more than 25,000 words) on the service men and women casualties of Chelsea during the Second World War. This covers the years between 1939 and 1947. See: Chelsea’s World War Two casualties in RAF, Army, Royal Navy and Merchant Navy services This is work in progress and under continuing construction with the biographies of those who died being developed from the excellent foundation information provided by the Commonweath War Graves Commission.

Chelsea lost hundreds of service people on active service in every theatre of war throughout the world. The ranks extended from private, cadet and seaman to Air Marshall, Admiral and Brigadier. Socially every class was represented. A working class cleaner bombed out of her home in Seaton Street in the World’s End would lose her only son when he was killed at the age of eighteen.

The aristocracy and political establishment would lose their sons in battle too with formal death records starting with the phrase: ‘The Honourable..’. Every kind of military role imaginable is listed in the roll call of sacrifice- from butcher and cook to SAS Special Forces.

I am finding this research and writing profoundly moving and considering every individual involved with the utmost respect and the desire to make their contributions more widely known- much more than a name and statistic.

2025 will be the 80th year since the end of the Second World War. If you are relatives and descendants of any of the people I am writing about and want to correct, add and develop the information offered here, feel free to contact me and give me guidance.

Update 27th December 2024

The Paultons Square trench shelter tragedy- October 20th 1940 is a new posting exploring in great detail the bombing of the ARP Warden’s Hut at the entrance to Paultons Square’s large public air raid shelter. This was dug into the gardens in the middle of the square as large trenches and then covered over with concrete roofing. Picture Post magazine visited the shelter taking a series of evocative images though wartime censorship meant the location and London Borough could not be disclosed.

This posting explores the social history of the people living in the square and surrounding streets in order to create a picture of the kind of people seeking refuge in the shelter during the 57 consecutive nights of air raids from September 1940 to May 1941. There are biographies of the five victims who were killed including an ARP Warden, Metropolitan Police War Reserve Constable, London bus conductor and 16-year-old girl from the World’s End.

Update for 5th October 2024

The 25,000 word and illustrated posting for the Church of the Holy Redeemer and Upper Cheyne Row disaster- 14th September 1940 has now been published while subject to further proofing and updates.

It is a comprehensive account of the bombing of 5 Upper Cheyne Row and the crypt of the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Redeemer in Chelsea on early Saturday evening during the second week of the Blitz of 1940.

Every attempt has been made to create a meaningful biography of all the people who died. They include ARP Warden, antiques dealer and nurse Albert ‘Bert’ George Thorpe, the artist and illustrator Adolphus Birkenruth, poet and interior designer Mabel Edith Price-Jones, and the Grosvenor brothers- Randolph Lea, a retired GP, and Edward Moberley, a retired merchant- who by dying together and most likely at the same time tested English inheritance law. Whose will should take precedence? In the end it was a matter for the highest court in the land.

It is also narrative of courage and public service based on the personal accounts of enormously impressive women: writer Mabel Lethbridge, the artist Jo Oakman and artist and novelist Frances Faviell.

Update for 29th September 2024

I am very sorry that I had to withdraw my appeal to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) lodged 11th August 2024 seeking historian access rights to the four Met Police files into the murder of Dr. Richard Castillo in 1961.

This was withdrawn 24th September 2024 after the legal response of the Information Commissioner indicated that the appeal was not likely to be successful.

There are now High Court authorities binding on the Tribunal system countering the interpretation of the legal constructon of Freedom of Information Act’s phrase ‘would be likely to’ as meaning ‘more likely than not’ or ‘reasonably probable.’

I did feel there were very strong public interest grounds looking at the files 63 years after the event. I also thought the risks of any harm to a continuing police investigation, the wellbeing of people connected to the case, and third parties identified in the papers were minimal and remote.

Update for 12th September 2024

The Chelsea Blitz: Chelsea at war between 1939 and 1945 by Tim Crook is coming soon with publication by Kultura Press in 2026.

The book will contain in narrative form all of the postings on Chelsea Blitz history posted and in continuing development in Chelsea History and Studies. Publication is by popular demand from people and online readers wanting to have a book form of this remarkable story of the people’s history of Chelsea during these dramatic years.

It is expected to be the most comprehensive history of Chelsea during the Second World War years to date.

The online postings will remain on open access though with all rights reserved.

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Updates for 9th April 2024.

The latest detailed posting on a high casualty incident is The ‘Big Bomb’ in Shawfield Street- Friday 1st November 1940. This has involved a considerable amount of new and original research; in particular identifying the real people and locations in John Strachey’s ‘Big Bomb’ chapter of his book about his time as an Air Raid Warden in Chelsea called Post D. What emerges in my opinion is so much respect, admiration and recognition for the pluck and defiance of Mrs Ethel Hamilton who lost her dear husband and survived being buried in the wreckage of her home with her 16 year old daughter Eileen. There is also the very moving account of the rescue of Annie RIng and her courage and that of her rescuers digging her out over 27 hours. Apart from the new late 20th century housing in Shawfield Street and Flood Street it would be difficult for anyone now to know and fully understand what had happened there 84 years ago. I hope this open source account can do justice to the memory of Miss Ring, Mrs Hamilton and all the people involved which they so much deserve.

Significant additions and developments for the posting Chelsea Blitz time line 1940 to 1945: incidents and casualties. I believe I am close to identifying all bombing incidents in Chelsea between 1940 and 1945 with Google Maps links to the locations as they are now. This also includes people killed in these incidents with links to their Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorations and the US equivalent for those American servicemen killed at Turk’s Row on 3rd July 1944. Many more images of the scenes as they were in the late 1930s and early 1940s have been embedded along with archive photograph resources from the Imperial War Museum. German intelligence files from the US National Archives have been added explaining why Chelsea was so heavily bombed. Proofing, corrections and more text detail about the damage caused in the incidents will follow.

The US National Archives have been enormously helpful in enabling access and use of photographs taken by US Army Signal Corp in London during WW2. These have substantially informed and been included in the new posting on the Turk’s Row and Sloane Court East V1 Doodlebug disaster. The style of biographical profiles of victims is something which will be followed and developed throughout the project.

Many thanks to Karen White for providing access to Ifor Evans’ 1946 novel The Shop On The King’s Road which captures the culture and spirit of immediate post WW2 Chelsea.

Detailed information about the hero A.R.P. Warden George Williams who saved scores of people from fire and suffocation at a basement air-raid shelter in the World’s End has been added to Part Three of the Chelsea Blitz narrative. He was awarded an O.B.E. and a photograph of him published in War Illustrated in 1941 has been found and included in the posting.

Huge respect to Lauren Buckley who has been in contact to talk about her great uncle Dennis Buckley who was only 15 years old when killed in the Seaton Street bombing in October 1940.

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Special thanks to Karen White and Chris Pain whose families lived in Chelsea during World War Two, and Malachy John McCauley, also brought up in Chelsea, who have very kindly encouraged and assisted my research. Special thanks to Marja Giejgo for editorial assistance. Research and archive facilities from Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council library services, The Imperial War Museum and National Archives at Kew.

If you would like to protect the history and heritage of Chelsea do consider applying to be a member of The Chelsea Society which ‘was founded in 1927 to protect the interests of all who live and work here, and to preserve and enhance the unique character of Chelsea for the public benefit.‘

I am also a great believer in the importance of local libraries for preserving the memory of community and local history. Royal Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council library services were my refuge and temples of learning when I was brought up in Chelsea. They continue to provide outstanding lending and archive services, have been invaluable in my continuing research and writing about the people of Chelsea. I give tribute to all who work in them, use them and support them.

Congratulations to The Chelsea Citizen, a dynamic new hyper-local newspaper launching in the spring 2025. Founder & Editor Rob McGibbon, Chelsea resident for 30 years and 40 years a respected and campaigning journalist. This is a significant and important development in the history of newspapers and journalism in Chelsea. Whole-hearted support from Chelsea History and Studies. Sign up for the Chelsea Citizen Newsletter.