1985 – 1992
Godfrey Kent’s grandfather came to farm at Chishill Hall which adjoins the present home of the Kent family, Parsonage Farm. Joseph Kent had two sons, Godfrey Kent’s father, John Francis Kent, and his uncle, Lewis Kent. At the age of seven, John Kent suffered an attack of poliomyelitis, which eventually resulted in the need for surgery to his right leg (growth having been inhibited, it was necessary for a tendon to be severed). Until his death he was never to forget the pain of an operation that was performed without the use of anaesthetic! John Kent spent the whole of his early years at home, his disability compelling the use of crutches until his teens. He was unable to attend the local school and was given a private tutor. It was a very lonely time for the boy, with so many normal youthful activities denied him. Thrown upon his own devices, almost all of his free time was spent on the farm in the company of his dog. This enforced companionship was to lead to an awareness that he possessed a unique talent – the gift of animal trust. Day by day patience and effort was to result in a dog that would respond to commands as if animal and boy were speaking the same language. Other working dogs were to be taken under his instruction and when only ten years of age an impressed visitor to the farm offered to buy one of the dogs for the then princely sum of seven shillings and sixpence. So began a lifetime’s career that would eventually bring the boy into contact with sportsmen from all over the world. Remarkably, John Kent’s extraordinary gift was to emerge in each of his two sons.
Regrettably, Godfrey’s grandfather’s gambling debts were to result in the sale of the farm, from which there was just enough money left to build a small house locally, to which the family moved in 1906. John Kent, in his new home, continued to train farm working dogs. At that time, typically, such dogs were unruly and needed to be situated well behind the guns before being released to recover game; often a time-wasting business. John Kent knew that he could do better, His name was to spread among the sporting community when it became known that his dogs would walk tightly to heel, would sit quietly while driven game was shot and, when released, would retrieve and return speedily. By the age of nineteen he had won his first national field trial and a year later achieved the very first Cocker Spaniel National Field Trial Champion. From that time on, sportsmen from all over the world would be coming to Chishill for their dogs to receive the unique benefits of the Kent training methods.
In 1910 John Francis Kent married Ethel Maud Andrews, the daughter of a local builder. The couple were to make their home at Nashes Farm, Chrishall, again only a “stones throw” from Parsonage Farm, which was ideally sited for the development of his training school. When the war came, because of his disability, he was rejected for military service, so, in addition to the dog school, with his brother he purchased one of the first petrol-driven tractors in the neighbourhood. Working all daylight hours, with contract ploughing, they took full advantage of the changing times when over one million horses still supplied the principal energy source for work on the land throughout the United Kingdom.
Godfrey Kent was born in 1917. His father wanted him to be called George but his mother insisted upon Godfrey. She did however agree to the addition of Blagdon Westcott. It is from the paternal side of the family that these names derive, for his great-great-grandfather, Walter Westcott Wyman had also farmed locally at Hornmehead Hall. Further light has been thrown on the family names by Brian Tierney, who, whilst researching a paper on St. Paul’s Cathedral, discovered reference to one of Godfrey’s illustrious forbears. There is a monument to the captain of the Majestic who was the only captain to be killed at the Battle of the Nile, Captain George Blagdon Westcott, a direct ancestor. The monument in St. Paul’s Cathedral is inscribed, “Erected at the public expense to the memory of George Blagdon Westcott, Captain of the Majestic, who after thirty-three years meritorious service, fell gloriously in the victory obtained over the French fleet off Aboukir, the first day of August in the year 1798, in the forty-sixth year of his age”.
The Kent agricultural business continued to expand, with food production being a vital need at the height of the war years. The brothers formed a partnership with Harry Drage (Drage and Kent), with finance for the expansion being introduced by a Letchworth factory owner, a Belgian named Kryne. The latter was engaged in the manufacture of shells and ammunition for the military and had become known to the brothers through shooting. The basis of the expanded business was to be “steam”. Monster engines were to revolutionise the ‘one acre a day’, that man and horse could plough and the broad acres of Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Essex were to prove fertile ground for the extension of a business that would fill the urgent needs of the moment. It grew rapidly and at its peak, would become the principal employer in the district for over one hundred and fifty men.
Godfrey Kent was educated locally at Newport Grammar School (whose motto “Suffer and Serve” would later be adopted by the Godfrey Kent Lodge No. 9375), where he describes himself as being an adequate scholar. He played cricket for the school and later for Royston Town; he also enjoyed tennis and, later, would become a moderately low handicap golfer. The importance and popularity of the sport of shooting in the years before the Second World War are, in today’s changed social times, perhaps difficult to appreciate. From the opening of the season in early September until its closure on the 2nd February, shooting parties filled every available moment in the country calendar. By the age of seventeen he was an excellent shot and an automatic inclusion in parties throughout the district and beyond. The young Godfrey began to mix with the great and the good from every walk of life. He well remembers a visit to the farm by the future King and Queen of England in 1924, whilst on their honeymoon, to witness the progress of their cocker spaniel under training.
In 1936, Godfrey Kent’s brother Dick died, and their father was inconsolable. One day Godfrey asked his father if he would like him to train some dogs. The response was immediate and his father jumped at the idea. Godfrey says “I did not want to have anything to do with dogs at all – my ambitions were towards engineering and as both Dad and Dick were quite brilliant with dogs I felt that was enough for one family. My father’s unhappiness, however, could not be borne and I felt something must be done to help”. In consequence, he left school early and from then on continued the Kent dog training business with his father.
In 1938 he was gazetted as a Second Lieutenant in the Territorial Army, and in the intervening time before the outbreak of war, he was responsible for the raising of over two platoons for the Regiment – some eighty men based at Melbourne. In August 1939 he was called up for service and joined the Second Battalion, the Cambridgeshire Regiment. During the early days of the war, the Battalion was stationed on anti-invasion duties in North Norfolk, where, after a very short crash course, it was engaged in mine laying.
Throughout 1940 and 1941, the Battalion was stationed in various parts of East Anglia. Lieutenant Kent was to be given an opportunity to exercise his civilian skills and was appointed as Chief Instructor of what was to be the first War Dog Training School in the British Army. Based originally in Aldershot, a small team of dog handlers was recruited together with the first intake of a dozen dogs. With a free hand and developing his own unique methods, fully trained animals were soon being turned out with the skills to guard or to seek out mines and explosives. Today, he takes just pride in the ability of units such as the R.A.F. Dog Demonstration Team, knowing that little has fundamentally changed since he first introduced training methods for military dogs. With the new school soundly established, it was handed over as a running unit to the Royal Army Veterinary Corps in 1942.
Whilst based near London two significant events occurred which were to materially affect the future of Lieutenant Godfrey Kent. Firstly, he was to meet the young daughter of the Bedborough family, Barbara, who was one of the few civilians permitted to enter the Operations Room of Bomber Command. They were married in 1943. Secondly, in 1942, he had a stay in the Masonic Hospital where he had undergone an operation on his sinuses. He was much impressed, not only with the quality of treatment during his stay but also the raison d’etre for the existence of the hospital. When returning home on leave, he made an approach to a neighbouring farmer, Mr. Reg Chambers, and expressed an interest in joining the fraternity. Some weeks later his mother took him to one side and informed him that his father was most upset as he thought the initial approach should have been made to him. Reg Chambers sorted things out, a sorting that was to be providential for Hertfordshire, for Reg Chambers was a Member of an Essex Lodge.
At an emergency meeting of the Royston Lodge No. 4304, at the Icknield Hall, Letchworth on 20th March 1943, Lieutenant G.B.W. Kent was initiated by Dispensation as he expected to be ordered overseas at an early date and wished to become a Freemason before doing so. The Ceremony was worked by his father, Worshipful Brother John Kent, with the charge being delivered by Worshipful Brother Harry Drage. The meeting was held at the Icknield Hall because the Royston Hall had been requisitioned for defence purposes. His progress thereafter, it being wartime, was swift. He was passed at a regular meeting of the Lodge on the 10th April 1943 and raised by Dispensation at an emergency meeting on May Day 1943 – just six weeks from entrance to Master Mason. By now promoted to Staff Captain Kent, with his Combined Operations training completed, he was to be posted overseas to the Far East with the Royal Engineers Beach Group and it was to be some considerable time before he was to return to his wife, his family and his Lodge.
He was demobilised in 1946 and for his service was later to be awarded the Territorial Decoration. He and his wife were to set up their first home together at Broad Green Acre Farm, Chrishall. Anne, their first daughter, was born in 1948, to be followed by Susan in 1952. Godfrey’s working life resumed much as before and there was a steady flow of dogs for training, Before long, however, it became apparent that the family business of Drage and Kent was experiencing serious difficulty. John Kent asked his son to take over and during the following years his efforts made significant improvements in the recovery of the business although it would never again achieve the levels of success of the 1930’s.
Throughout this period Masonry was beginning to play an important part in his life; after serving in each of the progressive offices of the Lodge, with the exception of Junior Deacon, in 1956 he was proud to be installed as Master of Royston Lodge No. 4304 by his father.
By the end of 1959, both Harry Drage and Lewis Kent had died and as sole surviving partner, John Kent had no choice, with the need for cash to meet estate duty liabilities, but to order the liquidation of the company. A sad time for Godfrey and Barbara, lightened however by the birth of a third daughter, Jill, in 1960. Having completed the disposal of the family business, he turned his energy towards a new venture. He took charge of the Police Dog Training School to be established at Ewell in Surrey. Each day he travelled by rail to Surrey to be met, Godfrey recalls with some amusement, by a Black Maria, driven by a uniformed Police Officer. Within two years the project was sufficiently advanced for him to hand over the school for management by the Police themselves. During this time he established an international reputation and he was to be approached by Police Forces from the United States of America, from Hong Kong , and Malaysia, all of whom were showing keen interest in his training methods. Now was a time of career decision – to follow the natural progression of Dog Training would lead to extensive travel and time abroad, obviously at a cost to his personal life. His inclination had always been towards farming and with so much of his youth already having been spent away from home, his eventual decision was to remain in Chrishall. His assistance to foreign Police Forces was to take the form of written manuals.
At this time, in addition to shooting and golf, the Kent’s took up fly-fishing, Barbara being a more proficient angler than Godfrey. Masonically, he was serving the Royston Lodge as Director of Ceremonies. During 1959 the opportunity arose to purchase the base of the old family firm, Parsonage Farm, and the moated farmhouse (later to be chosen as the Badge of the Godfrey Kent Lodge No. 9375) a typical example of many fine North Hertfordshire farm dwellings. Masonically, having spent six years as Director of Ceremonies, and latterly as Secretary, his loyalty and hard work for the Royston Lodge was to be rewarded in 1971 with promotion to Past Provincial Senior Grand Deacon. However, in 1976 he received what he described as a masonic shock. Attending a Ladies Festival of the Hertfordshire Masters’ Lodge, he was invited by the Provincial Grand Master, RW Bro Guy Halsey, to become an Assistant Provincial Grand Master. He was utterly astounded by the invitation and pleaded for time to consider. Hertfordshire was aware of his eventual acceptance and when the appointment was publicised, surprise was understandable in the appointment of a relative “unknown”. He was rapidly to rectify this by a prodigious pattern of visits around the Province.
John Kent, having achieved ninety years of age and having lived to see his son invested as Assistant Provincial Grand Master, died in 1977. Nature could offer no more fitting epitaph to a man who had devoted his whole life to sporting animals than that his death should occur on the last official day of the shooting season. By an extraordinary coincidence, his brother and business partner, Lewis, had died on the first day of the shooting season.
Upon the retirement of RW Brother Guy Halsey in 1985, Godfrey Kent was invited by the Most Worshipful, The Grand Master, to succeed Bro Halsey. On 30th May 1985, RW Bro Godfrey Blagdon Westcott Kent was installed as Provincial Grand Master for Hertfordshire by RW Bro the Lord Farnham, Assistant Grand Master, at Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street, London.
Godfrey admits to doubts at the time about accepting this office and this can by sympathised with, for it could not have been easy to assume the mantle of Guy Halsey, a most affectionate and compassionate ruler whose personal leadership, following a dynastic line of Hertfordshire Provincial Grand Masters, was legendary.
His acceptance coincided with changing Masonic times and a major administrative problem concerning the Hertfordshire Old Peoples’s Establishment (H.O.P.E.). Bro Donald Forrester had both launched and generously endowed the scheme and the Brethren of the Province had responded equally generously. A capital sum of £1.75 million had been achieved. In addition, Bro Forrester indicated that further financial support would be forthcoming when the home was up and running, but sadly this support did not occur as a result of his death in 1986.
Therefore, while Godfrey Kent could see sufficient cash to cover the constructional costs of the home, there were woefully insufficient monies to run it. In consequence, a bold decision to shelve the scheme was taken and the resultant time gained enabled negotiations to begin with the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution. In retrospect, there could have been no better resolution than the building of the Prince Michael of Kent Court at Watford, a fitting tribute to V W Bro Donald Forrester, the generosity of the Brethren of Hertfordshire and the caring professionalism of the R.M.B.I.
During his rule, Godfrey Kent consecrated twelve Lodges, the first, Shyre Lodge No. 9168 on 8th October 1985, and the last Catuvellauni Lodge No. 9435 on 13th September 1991. Of particular pleasure was the consecration of Lodge No. 9369 on 29th May 1990, which took place in the presence and carried the name of his revered predecessor, Right Worshipful Brother Guy Marsden Halsey. Later that year, on 3rd November 1990, he consecrated Lodge No. 9375 named after himself. In addition, eight lodges joined Hertfordshire.
