Walter George Kent (d.1921)
Walter George Kent ( -1921) of Allen Everitt and Sons
1921 Obituary [1]
Engineer-Captain WALTER GEORGE KENT, C.B.E., R.N., died on September 15, 1921. Engineer-Captain Kent entered the Royal Naval Engineering College at Devonport in 1880, leaving it in 1886 to proceed to the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
In 1887 he left Greenwich and joined H.M.S. Bellerophon in the West Indies, later serving on the Pacific Station on board H.M.S. Champion, a corvette, during a commission of 31 years. In 1896 he was appointed to a destroyer building by Messrs. Laird Brothers, Birkenhead, and went to sea in 1897 in H.M.S. Thrasher. Later he served in H.M.S. Orwell, leader of the Mediterranean destroyer flotilla.
In 1902 he left the Orwell and destroyers after an experience of seven years, and was again sent to the Mediterranean in H.M.S. Venus. He became Admiralty Overseer for the Midland district at Birmingham in 1906, and in 1909 was appointed Engineer-Commander of H.M.S. Bulwark, flagship at Sheerness, where he managed the machinery department with conspicuous success, and was selected in 1911 to carry out the mechanical training of stoker ratings at Chatham. Here he was very successful, making the training a thorough one and obtaining excellent results.
At the outbreak of war he was appointed to H.M.S. Diligence at Portsmouth, and early in 1915 returned to Birmingham as Overseer, accomplishing the necessarily enormous amount of work with characteristic energy and acumen. In addition to the regular duties attaching to the post of Admiralty Overseer of the Midland district, his work in Birmingham included the organization of the supply of non-ferrous materials for the Admiralty and Ministry of Munitions until the Director of Materials and Priority was appointed. He was promoted to Acting Engineer-Captain in 1916, and received the C.B.E. after the war terminated, in recognition of his services, retiring in 1919, when he joined the firm of Messrs. Allen Everitt & Sons, Ltd., Kingston Metal Works, Smethwick, as assistant managing director, which position he held at the time of his death.
His strict integrity and unfailing kindness of heart, together with his scrupulous devotion to duty, and his thorough knowledge of naval machinery and its manufacture, have earned for Captain Kent the highest respect and esteem of his many friends in naval and engineering circles, who will lament his loss.
Engineer-Captain Kent was elected member of the Institute of Metals on June 10, 1920.