Vernon Kell

Major-General Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, KBE (21 November, 1873 – 27 March, 1942) was the founder and first director general (DG) of the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5.

Kell was the son of Major Waldegrave Kell of the 38th Foot and his wife, Georgiana Augusta Konarska. She was daughter of a Polish émigré, Aleksander Konarski, a surgeon with the 1st Podhalian Rifle Regiment who had fought in the November Uprising and had been awarded the V.M. (Gold, 4th class) and his English wife.

After graduating from Sandhurst, Kell was commissioned into the South Staffordshire Regiment and fought in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. As he could speak German, Italian, French and Polish with equal facility, he served and studied in China and Russia and subsequently learned to speak their respective languages.

While he served as an intelligence staff in Tientsin, he was also the foreign correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph".

From 1902 to 1906 Kell was head of the German section of the War Office, eventually rising to the rank of staff captain. During World War I, Kell headed the MI5's section dealing with the Indian seditionist movement in Europe, called MI5(g). Among Nathan's officers worked ex-ICS officers Robert Nathan and HL Stephenson.Harvnb|Popplewell|1995|p=218] His worked at the time close to the Special Branch of the Scotland Yard headed by Basil Thomson, and was successful in tracing the works of Indian revolutionaries who worked along with the Germans during the war.Harvnb|Popplewell|1995|p=220]

Removed from office by Winston Churchill during World War II, Kell was knighted for his services (KBE) shortly before his death.

ee also

* Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming
* Sidney Reilly
* Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart
* William Melville

* Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the British Empire. Richard James Popplewell.1995