Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, (21 November 1873 – 27 March 1942) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

general and the founder and first Director of the British Security Service, otherwise known as

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...

. Known as K, he was described in '' Who's Who'' as "Commandant, War Department Constabulary".

Early life

Born in Great Yarmouth,

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, in 1873, Kell was the son of Major Waldegrave Kell of the 38th Foot and his Polish wife, Georgiana Augusta Konarska.

Military service

After graduating from the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infant ...

, Kell was commissioned into the

South Staffordshire Regiment The South Staffordshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence for only 68 years. The regiment was created in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot an ...

on 10 October 1894, and promoted to

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

on 15 December 1896. He was in January 1900 seconded for service in China, 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 Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

he was also the foreign correspondent of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

''. He was promoted to the rank of captain on 24 September 1901, while still seconded in China where he served as a Railway Staff Officer (for which he was mentioned in despatches). After his return to London from China in 1902, Kell was employed to analyse German intelligence at the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

. He returned to a posting in his regiment from 1 October 1903, and was appointed a staff captain serving at the

on 9 February 1904. 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 Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming (1 April 1859 – 14 June 1923) was a British naval officer who served as the first chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Origins He was a great-great grandson of the prominent merchant John ...

, to head the newly formed Secret Service Bureau. He retired from active duty on 16 October 1909, but remained in the reserves.

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 (which evolved into

and

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

). The separation took place in 1910. Kell was promoted to the rank of major in the reserves on 20 August 1913. Following the outbreak of war in 1914, Kell was restored to active duty as a GSO 2, and was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel on 5 September. On 1 March 1915, he was appointed a GSO 1, retaining his temporary rank. 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.

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. Kell also worked closely with the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, then headed by

Basil Thomson Sir Basil Home Thomson, (21 April 1861 – 26 March 1939) was a British colonial administrator and prison governor, who was head of Metropolitan Police CID during World War I. This gave him a key role in arresting wartime spies, and he was clos ...

, and was successful in tracing the work of Indian revolutionaries collaborating with the Germans during the war.

Between the wars

Kell was promoted to the rank of colonel in the reserves on 1 April 1924. Upon reaching the age of 60 on 21 November 1933, he was struck from the reserve list. Kell received an honorary promotion to major-general on 27 September 1939. In December 1938, having reached retirement age, Kell asked to remain in post on a year-to-year basis.Christopher Andrew, ''The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5'' (London, 2009) 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 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 Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

, after 30 years in post. He was the longest-serving head of any British government department during the 20th century. He was knighted for his services shortly before his death in 1942.

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) * Companion of the Order of the Bath, Military Division (CB; 1 January 1917)

Other

*Officer of the Order of Leopold (Kingdom of Belgium; 24 September 1917) *Officer of the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

(France; 24 September 1917) *Officer of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Kingdom of Italy; 1 April 1919) *Campaign medal for ChinaPortrait photograph of Kell at Plate 1 of Christopher Andrew's ''Authorised History of MI5'' (partly obscured) *1914 War Medal

Popular culture

Kell was the basis for a major character in

Bert Coules Bert Coules is an English writer, mainly for the BBC, who has produced a number of adaptations and original works. He works mainly in radio drama but also writes for TV and the stage. Early years Bert Coules worked in radio drama for ten years, ...

's radio adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's '' His Last Bow''. Kell is depicted as an ally of a secret society of bodyguards attached to the radical

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

movement in the graphic novel trilogy '' Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons'' (2015). In Dennis Wheatley's novel ''The Second Seal'', Kell investigates the book's hero, the Duke de Richleau.

Footnotes

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kell, Vernon Officers of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Companions of the Order of the Bath British Army major generals British reporters and correspondents Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst South Staffordshire Regiment officers Directors General of MI5 1873 births 1942 deaths Hindu–German Conspiracy British Army personnel of the Boxer Rebellion World War I spies for the United Kingdom English people of Polish descent People from Great Yarmouth Military personnel from Norfolk Officiers of the Légion d'honneur