Dame Marion Kettlewell, Wren – obituary

Dame Marion Kettlewell
Dame Marion Kettlewell

Dame Marion Kettlewell, who has died aged 102, emigrated to Canada pre-war but returned to Britain eventually to become Director of the Women’s Royal Naval Service.

A geography class at Godolphin stirred a desire to visit Canada, and on completion of study at St Christopher’s, Blackheath, a Church of England training college, Marion Kettlewell applied to the Fellowship of the Maple Leaf to undertake youth work on the prairies.

Founded in 1917 to provide teachers for newly settled districts, the FML rejected Marion because she was under their minimum age of 24. But, undeterred, she appealed and at 21 found herself as an unpaid volunteer among the scattered communities of Alberta, where the fellowship made it a condition of her service that she should not preach.

She taught the children of British and central European immigrants, as well as Indians, and led several Cub and Scout groups. Her transport was by sleigh or on horseback, depending upon the season, and children and their parents came from miles around to attend community events she organised.

Marion Mildred Kettlewell was born on February 20 1914 at Strawberry Hill, the daughter of a civil engineer, and educated at Godolphin School, Salisbury.

Arriving home for leave in 1939, Marion found that her father had gone bankrupt, and she was still in London, helping her parents move house, when war broke out. From 1939 to 1940 she worked for a charity for distressed Jewish families who had escaped Nazi Europe.

In 1941 she was again rejected, this time by the WRNS, but the morning after her rejection she was summoned by telephone to be a driver for the Flag Officer Submarines (then Vice-Admiral Max Horton) at his headquarters at Swiss Cottage, and given an armband as her uniform.

She was puzzled by her first order – “Cox’un, bring the admiral’s barge alongside” – until she realised that this was a nautical reference to her and her father’s motor car. After some months she was fitted out in uniform and billeted at Eton College, still as a driver and still without any formal training.

By 1942 Marion Kettlewell’s talent had been recognised. She was selected to be commissioned and, after three weeks’ preparation at Greenwich, she was appointed as quarters officer in charge of the catering and accommodation at HMS Twatt, the naval air station at Hatston in Orkney. There her WRNS unit (ie commanding) officer sacked her on her first day for her inexperience, but in the six months it took to find a replacement, Marion Kettlewell had risen to the challenge of making life as comfortable as possible for the naval airmen and sailors in that remote station.

She then served for two years as quarters officer at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, while it was serving as a barracks and school. Despite the Blitz on London she staged several formal dinners for visiting dignitaries.

Promoted to Second Officer, she was appointed as unit officer to command the Wrens at Harwich, preparing landing craft for Operation Neptune, the Allied landings in Normandy. In June 1944, now a First Officer, she was appointed to HMS Godwit, a naval air station in Shropshire, where as senior WRNS officer, she helped to demobilise several hundred Wrens.

Nevertheless, when Marion Kettlewell applied for a permanent commission, she suffered a third rejection, and for several months she shuffled around naval air stations, which she helped to close down at the end of the war, all the while campaigning to be allowed to stay.

Marion Kettlewell climbing into her Hunter
Marion Kettlewell climbing into her Hunter

In 1947 she won her argument, and there followed several key appointments, including to the supply school at Wetherby, three years on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, and as a Chief Officer in the Admiralty. In 1961 she was promoted Superintendent, WRNS, on the staff of Flag Officer Flying Training. There she flew in a Hunter, thus becoming, to everyone’s delight, a supersonic superintendent. Marion Kettlewell also recalled that at the naval air station at Culdrose she forbade the commanding officer from erecting a fence around the Wrens’ quarters on the grounds that it was a slur on her girls’ morals.

Promoted to Commandant, the highest rank in the WRNS, Marion Kettlewell was the Director of the WRNS from 1967 to 1970. It was the heyday of the organisation: there were some 3,000 women, all volunteers, not even subject to the Naval Discipline Act, and she was proud to lead them. They came from all walks of life and were generally brighter and better motivated than their male counterparts, and her own priorities were to widen career opportunities, including exchanges with the Canadian and Dutch navies, to bring in new skills to meet advances in naval technology, and to fill specialist roles and manpower shortages.

Slowly, however, the Wrens were changing and she recalled the time the Navy’s director of manning shook his head as he told her: “Marion, the Wrens will have to go to sea” – anticipating a decision that would not be taken for another 20 years.

Marion Kettlewell with her successor as director of the WRNS, Daphne Blundell 
Marion Kettlewell with her successor as director of the WRNS, Daphne Blundell 

She was appointed CBE in 1964 and DBE in 1970.

Marion Kettlewell was general secretary of the Girls’ Friendly Society from 1970 to 1978 and president of the Association of Wrens (1981-92).

Her childhood was influenced by the example of her mother who, though crippled with arthritis from an early age, never complained – and who was also profoundly deaf, which taught Marion Kettlewell about communication.

Marion Kettlewell was inspired throughout her life by her strong faith. In the late 1980s she served on the parochial church council of St Stephen’s, Rochester Row, when the present Bishop of London was vicar. She was also influenced and supported by her widespread family, including an aunt in Canada and her three brothers, one of whom was director of agriculture in Nyasaland.

When she finally retired she kept open house in her small Pimlico flat, where a visiting friend or member of her family from far-flung places was usually to be found.

 

Dame Marion Kettlewell, born February 20 1914, died April 11 2016

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