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Description: | Microfilm copy of an important ts biography (230pp) written by his wife, Lady Constance Kell, providing an insight into the private life of the founder and first director of MI5 and describing his service in China with the South Staffordshire Regiment where he was involved in the Boxer Uprising (1900) and subsequent relief of Peking; as Intelligence Officer on General Lorne Campbell's staff (September 1901 - 1902) including visits to Tientsin and Peking; as Railway Staff Officer at Tongku Station where he was involved with the foreign administration of the Chinese railways (1902 - 1903); upon his return to the United Kingdom in 1904, a brief period as Staff Captain in the German Section at the War Office before his appointment as Head of the new Counter Espionage Section; and, after stepping down as head of MI5 in 1940, his service during the Second World War with the Free French Welfare and as a Special Constable before his death from pneumonia in March 1942. Apart from providing an account of Kell's work and private life, the biography includes references to the arrest of suspect German sympathisers after the outbreak of war in August 1914, the experiences of Lady Constance's sister as a VAD nurse who treated survivors of the RMS LUSITANIA in Queenstown, Ireland, and the relaxed atmosphere following the Armistice which allowed the setting up of the MI5 "Hush Hush" show and the "Intelligent People Dinner Club". The microfilm also contains copies of 3 ms diaries containing summary entries, 1939 - 1941; an ms journal covering his service in the Boxer Uprising, June 1900 - July 1901; ts lecture notes; a printed duty distribution list (18pp) of officers serving in the Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence, 6 November 1933; a ts report (2pp) relating to two Germans who were caught studying maps of England in a hotel room, March 1908; an ms letter (1p) from an "out of work" informer, 25 October 1934; and various other memoranda and reports.
Cataloguer APR
Catalogue date 2001-05-08 | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Kell, Vernon | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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