Biographies

K

Karloff, Boris: stage name of William Henry Pratt (1887–1969). Actor best known for his portrayal of the monster in the 1931 film Frankenstein. He was a prominent member of the Hollywood Cricket Club.

Kaye, Danny: stage name of David Daniel Kaminsky (1913–1987). American actor, singer and comedian.

Keats, John (1795–1821). Leading romantic poet.

Kelly, Sir Gerald Festus (1879–1972). Artist, President of the Royal Academy, 1949–54. Noted for portraits. Among ten of his portraits in the National Portrait Gallery are Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, King George VI, Montague Rhodes James, Marie Stopes, Ernest Thesiger, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Kempis, Thomas à (otherwise known as Thomas Hemerken, Thomas Hämerken, Thomas van Kempen, Tomás de Kempis) (c. 1380–1471) German monk; author of Imitation of Christ, one of the best known Christian books on devotion.

Kemsley, Lord: (James) Gomer Berry (1883–1968), first Viscount Kemsley. Newspaper publisher. Proprietor of The Sunday Times, 1937–59.

Kendrick, Sir Thomas Downing (1895–1979). Archaeologist. Director of the British Museum 1950–59.

Kenealy, Edward Vaughan Hyde (1819–1880). Irish barrister and writer, a member of Samuel Palmer’s defence team.

Kennan, George Frost (1904–2005). American diplomat and academic. Professor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, 1956–74, then Professor Emeritus. US Ambassador to the USSR, 1952–53; US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, 1961–63. George Eastman Visiting Professor, Oxford, 1957–58; Reith Lecturer, BBC, 1957.

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917–1963). US politician. Elected President in 1961, but assassinated before he completed his third year in office.

Kent, Duchess of, née Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark; (1906–1968) wife of Prince George, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George V and Queen Mary.

Keown, Eric Oliver Dilworth (1904–1963). Writer for Punch, 1928–63, with a break for service in WWII. Drama critic 1932–39 and 1945–63. Biographer of Peggy Ashcroft and Margaret Rutherford. Regular broadcaster on BBC’s ‘The Critics’.

Ketton-Cremer, (Robert) Wyndham (1906–1969). Historian and biographer, owner of Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, which he left to the National Trust. Biographer of Horace Walpole (1940) and Thomas Grey (1955).

Keynes, Sir Geoffrey Langdon (1887–1982). Surgeon and literary scholar. Married, 1917, Margaret Elizabeth Darwin, sister of Gwen Raverat and Sir Charles Darwin. An influential authority on William Blake. Edited the letters of Rupert Brooke. RH-D published works by Keynes on Brooke and Sassoon.

Khrushchev – see Krushchev.

Kindersley, Richard Stephen (d. 1932 aged 74). Eton master, 1888–1920. Oxford Rugby Blue, 1883.

King, Cecil Harmsworth (1901–1987). Newspaper director. Associated with The Daily Mirror from 1926 to 1968.

King, Edward (1829–1910). Anglican priest. Bishop of Lincoln, 1885–1910. In 1935 Archbishop Lang called him ‘bishop and saint’ and in 1980 his name was listed in the Kalendar of Saints in the Alternative Service Book of the Church of England.

Kingsford, Reginald John Lethbridge (1900–1979). Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, 1948–79. Assistant Secretary, 1922–48 and Secretary, 1948–63 to the University Press.

Kingsley, Charles (1819–1875). Anglican priest and novelist. Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, 1860–72. Remembered for The Water-babies (1863), a fable about a chimney-sweep. Engaged in public dispute on religious matters with J H Newman.

Kingsmill, Hugh: pen name of Hugh Kingsmill Lunn (1889–1949). Author and journalist.

Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard (1865–1936). Writer and poet.

Kitchener of Khartoum: Horatio Herbert Kitchener (1850–1916). 1st Earl Kitchener. Anglo-irish soldier. Secretary of State for War in WWI.

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb (1724–1803). German poet.

Knatchbull-Hugessen, Sir Hughe (1886–1971). Diplomat, 1908–47. Succeeded Alexander Cadogan as Ambassador to China in 1936. Ambassador to Turkey, 1939–44, where occurred the most notable incident in his career, ‘Operation Cicero’, recorded in RH-D’s letter of 13 November 1955.

Knight, (George) Richard Wilson (1897–1985), literary scholar. Professor of English Literature, University of Leeds, 1956–62. He wrote a series of books about Byron: Lord Byron: Christian Virtues (1952); Byron’s Dramatic Prose (1953); Lord Byron’s Marriage: The Evidence of Asterisks (1957); Byron and Hamlet (1962); and Byron and Shakespeare (1966).

Knox, Edmund George Valpy (1881–1971). Pen-name ‘Evoe’. Humorous writer. Staff of Punch, 1921; Editor, 1932–49.

Knox, Ronald Arbuthnot (1888–1957). Anglican and subsequently Roman Catholic priest. Theologian, Bible translator, writer of detective fiction. A biography of him by Evelyn Waugh was published in 1959.

Koestler, Arthur (1905–1983). Novelist and journalist, born in Budapest.

Kolchak, Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak (1874–1920). Russian naval commander, polar explorer and leader of anti-bolshevik White forces during the Russian Civil War.

Kossuth, Lajos (‘Louis’) (1802–1894). Hungarian lawyer, politician and revolutionary. Exiled for life after the suppression of the 1848 risings. Honoured by liberals as a freedom-fighter.

Kotzebue, August Friedrich Ferdinand von (1761–1819). German dramatist.

Kruger, Stephanus Johannes Paulus (‘Paul’) (1825–1904). President of South Africa. Exiled after the Boer War.

Krushchev (or Khrushchev), Nikita (1894–1971). Soviet leader. Secretary of the Communist Party, 1953–64. Prime Minister 1958–64.