DAME MARION KETTLEWELL

  While learning geography at St Christopher’s school, Blackheath, Marion Kettlewell’s eye fell upon a map of Canada, thus inspiring a curiosity the outcome of which was to forge the self-reliant, practical, no-nonsense qualities that took her to the top of her profession as Director of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS).

            She decided to go to Canada and undertake youth work in Alberta on behalf of the Fellowship of the Maple Leaf.  Originally rejected because the minimum age was 24, she was accepted at 21 in 1935 and soon found herself in the outlands amongst remotely separated farming communities with little in the way of entertainment or culture.  With a clientele of expatriate British, central European immigrants, half-castes and pure blood native tribespeople, unpaid except for board and lodging, her transport by horseback, sleigh or buggy, she helped to found Scout, Brownie and Cub camps as well as community centres for adults.  ‘People would come miles’, she said ‘The children had nothing at home – to involve and interest the rugged eighteen year olds was a character-forming experience’.  Her Fellowship instructions specifically forbade ‘preaching’.

            Taking six months leave at home, she found her father had gone bankrupt.  Staying in England until the outbreak of war in 1939, she worked in a charity dealing with the needs of distressed Jewish families escaping from Europe until applying to join the WRNS.

            It was not until 1938 that the Admiralty decided to re-introduce a WRNS that had been completely disbanded after the First World War.  Thus the enormous expansion that saw over 74,000 ‘Wrens’ by 1944 led in Kettlewell’s case, as in many others, to a recruitment in 1941 as a motor transport driver which was followed by swift promotion to officer after a superficial selection process and three weeks training.

            Appointed as ‘quarters officer’ to the naval air station at Hatston in Orkney, commanded by redoubtable aviator and Jutland veteran Captain St John Fancourt, Kettlewell’s WRNS superior officer ordered, “Get rid of Kettlewell.  I want an experienced caterer”.  But she held the job down, dealing efficiently with the challenge of making life as comfortable as possible for the sailors in that remote station.

            Her war service included two years as ‘quarters officer’ at Greenwich naval college during which time the area was frequently attacked by the Luftwaffe.

.           This was followed by promotion and appointment as ‘unit officer’, that is to say, in command, of Wrens assembling and preparing landing craft for the Normandy invasion at Harwich.  Having witnessed their sailing in June 1944, she was posted as senior WRNS officer to a naval air station near Wolverhampton where, after VE Day, she dealt with the issues of demobilisation and careers advice as well as the daily round of management and persuasive discipline, her ‘flock’ of some 500 still not being subject to the Naval Discipline Act (a measure that came into force in 1977).

            Although now a First Officer WRNS, Kettlewell applied for but was refused a permanent commission.  There followed a peculiar period in her career when, her air station having closed down, she was appointed as senior WRNS officer to four other air stations in rapid succession around the country as the incumbents retired or demobilised.  She clearly caught the selector’s eye and was advised to re-apply. 

            Responsible appointments to the Supply School at Wetherby, three years on the staff of the Flag Officer, Plymouth, and, as Chief Officer, a tour in the manpower planning department of the Admiralty followed.  By 1961 she was the Superintendent of WRNS on the staff of Flag Officer Air (Home), in which post she is thought to have become the only Superintendent WRNS to have ‘gone supersonic’ in a jet. This was a ‘large parish’ and Kettlewell had a fund of amusing stories; at the Culdrose naval air station she forbade the Captain from erecting a fence around the Wrens’ quarters as being unnecessarily reflective of their morals.  She was appointed CBE in 1964 after an Admiralty post as superintendent of WRNS training and drafting. 

            As Director of WRNS from 1967 to 1970, Kettlewell’s principle concern was to widen career opportunities, promote new skills to match advances in naval technology and, as always, fill manpower shortages.  She recalls the navy’s director of manning collapsing into an armchair in her office and with his head in his hands saying. “Marion, the Wrens will have to go to sea”  – presaging a decision not finally taken until 1990.

            She was appointed DBE in 1970, the last Director to be so honoured before Prime Minister Ted Heath’s changes to the awards policy.

            In retirement, Kettlewell was general secretary of the Girls’ Friendly Society until 1978 and president of the Association of Wrens from 1981 to 1992.

 Dame Marion Kettlewell DBE, Director of the

Women’s Royal Naval Service 1967-70, was born on

February 20, 1914.  She died on 27 April aged 102