Vernon Kell

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Major General

Sir Vernon Kell

KCMG, KBE, CB
Born21 November 1873
Great Yarmouth
Died27 March 1942(1942-03-27) (aged 68)
NationalityBritish
Other names'K'
OccupationIntelligence officer, soldier
Espionage activity
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service branchMI5
Service years1909–1940
RankDirector of MI5
Military career
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
Years of service1894–1939
RankMajor General
UnitSouth Staffordshire Regiment
Battles/warsBoxer Rebellion
First World War
AwardsKnight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Companion of the Order of the Bath
Officer of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)
Officer of the Legion of Honour (France)
Officer of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Italy)

Major General Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, KCMG, KBE, CB (21 November 1873 – 27 March 1942) was a British Army general and the founder and first Director of the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5. Known as K, he was described in Who's Who as "Commandant, War Department Constabulary".[2]

Early life[]

Born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in 1873, Kell was the son of Major Waldegrave Kell of the 38th Foot and his wife, Georgiana Augusta Konarska. She was a daughter of a Polish émigré, Alexander Konarski, a surgeon with the 1st Podhalian Rifle Regiment who had fought in the November Uprising and had been awarded the Virtuti Militari Gold Cross, by his marriage to an English wife.

Military service[]

After graduating from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Kell was commissioned into the South Staffordshire Regiment on 10 October 1894,[3] and promoted to lieutenant on 15 December 1896.[4] He was in January 1900 seconded for service in China,[5] and fought in the Boxer Rebellion later that year. He could speak German, Italian, French and Polish with equal facility, and after serving and studying in China and Russia, he learned their respective languages too. While he was on the intelligence staff in Tientsin he was also the foreign correspondent of The Daily Telegraph. He was promoted to the rank of captain on 24 September 1901,[6] while still seconded in China where he served as a Railway Staff Officer (for which he was mentioned in despatches).[7]

After his return to London from China in 1902, Kell was employed to analyse German intelligence at the War Office. He returned to a posting in his regiment from 1 October 1903,[8] and was appointed a staff captain serving at the War Office on 9 February 1904.[9]

Rising public fears in Great Britain of German espionage precipitated the creation of a new government intelligence agency. In 1909 Kell was selected by the War Office and the Admiralty as one of two officers, alongside Mansfield Smith-Cumming, to head the newly formed Secret Service Bureau.[10] He retired from active duty on 16 October 1909, but remained in the reserves.[11]

Intelligence service[]

Kell and Cumming decided to divide the intelligence work, Kell taking responsibility for domestic concerns, while Cumming was to oversee foreign matters. However, their working relationship was fraught, as Cumming advocated the separation of the Bureau's work into two distinct departments. The separation took place in 1910.[12] These two distinct sections were later retitled as the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service (now commonly known as MI5 and MI6 respectively).

Kell was promoted to the rank of major in the reserves on 20 August 1913.[9] Following the outbreak of war in 1914, Kell was restored to active duty as a GSO 2,[13] and was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel on 5 September.[14] On 1 March 1915, he was appointed a GSO 1, retaining his temporary rank.[15] For his service, he received a brevet promotion to lieutenant-colonel on 3 June 1916, and received a temporary promotion to colonel on 21 December.[16][17]

First World War[]

During the First World War, Kell headed MI5(g), a section dealing with the Indian seditionist movement in Europe. Among Kell's officers were ex-ICS officers Robert Nathan and H. L. Stephenson.[18] Kell also worked closely with the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, then headed by Basil Thomson, and was successful in tracing the work of Indian revolutionaries collaborating with the Germans during the war.[19]

Between the wars[]

Kell was promoted to the rank of colonel in the reserves on 1 April 1924.[20] Upon reaching the age of 60 on 21 November 1933, he was struck from the reserve list.[21] Kell received an honorary promotion to major-general on 27 September 1939.[22]

In December 1938, having reached retirement age, Kell asked to remain in post on a year-to-year basis.[23]:218 With the onset of war, MI5 finally got the hiring and financial resources of which it had been starved for years. However, MI5 proved unable to deploy them without confusion[23]:219 and Kell and his deputy, both in their mid-60s, got the blame. On 10 June 1940 Kell was dismissed on the instructions of Winston Churchill, after 30 years in post. He was the longest-serving head of any British government department during the 20th century.[23]:227

He was knighted for his services shortly before his death in 1942.[24]

Honours[]

Kell was awarded the following orders and decorations:

British[]

  • Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Military Division (KBE; 1919 Birthday Honours)[25]
  • Companion of the Order of the Bath, Military Division (CB; 1 January 1917)[26]

Other[]

Popular culture[]

Kell was the basis for a major character in Bert Coules's radio adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's His Last Bow. He was portrayed as a highly talented officer and a polyglot who had immense respect for Sherlock Holmes, claiming to have read all his publications. Kell convinces Holmes to join the war effort and to seek out the mastermind of a German espionage organisation.

Kell is depicted as an ally of a secret society of bodyguards attached to the radical women's suffrage movement in the graphic novel trilogy Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons (2015). The depiction is considered rather fantastic.

Kell is a major character in the novel called Blackest Of Lies. Written by novelist Bill Aitken, which is set during the First World War and concerns the death of Lord Kitchener.

In Dennis Wheatley's 1950 novel "The Second Seal", Kell investigates the book's hero, the Duke de Richleau. When the Duke meets a highly placed official at a London party in the Spring of 1914, he spins a fantastic yarn to the official about a plot by the Serbian Black Hand to stir up trouble in the Balkans and maybe promote a World War. Kell is given the job of verifying the Duke's background and reliability.

See also[]

Footnotes[]

  1. ^ Madeira, Victor (2014). Britannia and the Bear: The Anglo-Russian Intelligence Wars, 1917–1929. Woodbridge, Suffolk, U.K.: Boydell & Brewer Ltd. p. 140. ISBN 9781843838951. OCLC 870639051.
  2. ^ H. Montgomery Hyde, "A matter of official secrets", The Times, 4 December 1976
  3. ^ "No. 26559". The London Gazette. 9 October 1894. p. 5688.
  4. ^ "No. 26836". The London Gazette. 26 March 1897. p. 1741.
  5. ^ "No. 27163". The London Gazette (Supplement). 9 February 1900. p. 910.
  6. ^ "No. 27418". The London Gazette. 21 March 1902. p. 1964.
  7. ^ "No. 27497". The London Gazette. 21 November 1902. p. 7532.
  8. ^ "No. 27604". The London Gazette. 9 October 1903. p. 6152.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b "No. 27712". The London Gazette. 9 September 1904. p. 5844.
  10. ^ Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of Mi5 (London, 2009), p.21.
  11. ^ "No. 28297". The London Gazette. 15 October 1909. p. 7567.
  12. ^ Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of Mi5 (London, 2009), pp.25–27.
  13. ^ "No. 29046". The London Gazette (Supplement). 19 January 1915. p. 690.
  14. ^ "No. 28892". The London Gazette. 4 September 1914. p. 7001.
  15. ^ "No. 29124". The London Gazette (Supplement). 9 April 1915. p. 3554.
  16. ^ "No. 29608". The London Gazette (Supplement). 2 June 1916. p. 5559.
  17. ^ "No. 29871". The London Gazette (Supplement). 19 December 1916. p. 12424.
  18. ^ Popplewell 1995, p. 218
  19. ^ Popplewell 1995, p. 220
  20. ^ "No. 32940". The London Gazette. 30 May 1924. p. 4310.
  21. ^ "No. 34005". The London Gazette. 15 December 1933. p. 8127.
  22. ^ "No. 34714". The London Gazette (Supplement). 20 October 1939. p. 7102.
  23. ^ Jump up to: a b c Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (London, 2009)
  24. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 10 June 2011. Retrieved 25 April 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  25. ^ "No. 31395". The London Gazette. 6 June 1919. p. 7426.
  26. ^ "No. 29916". The London Gazette (Supplement). 23 January 1917. p. 924.
  27. ^ "No. 30302". The London Gazette (Supplement). 21 September 1917. p. 9863.
  28. ^ "No. 30306". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 September 1917. p. 9946.
  29. ^ "No. 31263". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 March 1919. p. 4199.
  30. ^ Jump up to: a b Portrait photograph of Kell at Plate 1 of Christopher Andrew's Authorised History of MI5 (partly obscured)

References[]

  • Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the British Empire, by Richard James Popplewell, 1995
Government offices
Preceded by
William Melville 		Director General of MI5
1909–1940 		Succeeded by
Brigadier 'Jasper' Harker
Retrieved from ""