James Kenner, 13 April 1885 - 30 June 1974

Abstract James Kenner was born on 13 April 1885 at Morpeth in Northumberland but his family came originally from Devon. His father, James Binmore Kenner, was born at Stoke Damarel in 1856, the son of a tailor’s seamster, but the family moved to London in his early boyhood. There they lived in humble circumstances in Soho Square and Kenner’s father, after only a primary school education, was sent out to work at an early age. However, he became a pupil teacher at St Martin’s Church School near Charing Cross and by his own effort and self- teaching matriculated at London University and then passed the Intermediate Arts Examination and was appointed an Assistant Master at Morpeth Grammar School in Northumberland about 1877. There he graduated B.A. London as an external student, a truly remarkable achievement for a self-taught man. In due course he became Second Master at Morpeth but in 1891 he gave up his post there to take over a small private boarding school at Brentwood, Essex, and developed it until he had about 100 boarding and day pupils; he retired in 1920 and died in 1940.