18 Facts About Vernon Kell

Vernon Kell was in January 1900 seconded for service in China, and fought in the Boxer Rebellion later that year.

Vernon Kell 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.

Vernon Kell was promoted to the rank of captain on 24 September 1901, while still seconded in China where he served as a Railway Staff Officer.

Vernon Kell returned to a posting in his regiment from 1 October 1903, and was appointed a staff captain serving at the War Office on 9 February 1904.

In 1909 Vernon 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.

Vernon Kell retired from active duty on 16 October 1909, but remained on the reserve list.

Vernon Kell and Cumming decided to divide the intelligence work, Vernon Kell taking responsibility for domestic concerns, while Cumming was to oversee foreign matters.

Vernon Kell was promoted to the rank of major on 20 August 1913.

Vernon Kell 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.

Vernon Kell was promoted to the rank of colonel in the reserve of officers on 1 April 1924.

Vernon Kell received an honorary promotion to major-general on 27 September 1939.

In December 1938, having reached retirement age, Vernon Kell asked to remain in post on a year-to-year basis.

On 10 June 1940 Vernon Kell was dismissed on the instructions of Winston Churchill, after 30 years in post.

Vernon Kell was the longest-serving head of any British government department during the 20th century.

Vernon Kell was the basis for a major character in Bert Coules's radio adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's His Last Bow.

Vernon 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.

In Dennis Wheatley's novel The Second Seal, Vernon Kell investigates the book's hero, the Duke de Richleau.

In Bill Aitken's novel Blackest of Lies, Vernon Kell is involved in the concealment of Lord Kitchener's fictional death at the hands of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.