John Kent

John Kent (1805 – 20 July 1886) was a British police constable at Maryport, then with the Carlisle City Police, and is reported to be the first black police officer in Britain.

Family and early life Kent was the son of Thomas Kent, a seaman who worked on the estate of a Cumberland colonial civil servant in the West Indies. Kent's father is believed to have originally arrived at Whitehaven, England, where he worked at Abbey House, Calder Abbey, in the service of the Senhouse family, where he was 'considered a slave'. He was later given his freedom and went to sea. It is unknown the true origin of the Kent name, in John Kent's eulogy the father was said to have taken his surname from the region of England where his ship may firstly have docked. Thomas Kent married Mary Wilson in 1787 and the couple had nine children, some dying in childhood; John was the eighth born.

John Kent married a white woman, Mary from Longtown, and settled on Botchergate Street, first recorded in the 1841 national census. He was described as a "quiet, inoffensive man" as well as a "big powerful man" who worked for the local authority, laying down paving slabs, in his own words between the move from Maryport to Carlisle. In the programme Henry revealed that he would like to create a television programme telling Kent's story with himself playing the part of Kent but was having difficulty interesting television companies in backing the project.