Reverend Francis John Kahn MA
Temporary Chaplain Forces (Y.M.C.A.)
Reverend Francis Kahn was Curate of Selston with St Mary’s, Westwood from 1915 to 1920. The Curate’s residence at that time was on Palmerston Street, Westwood. He was born in September 1876 in Leicester, son of Joseph Kahn, a clerk in holy orders, born Cologne, Germany and his wife Caroline (nee Hatten) born in Finsbury, London.
Francis graduated from St. Catherine’s, Cambridge at Michaelmas 1899 with a B.A. and gained his M.A. in 1909. Francis was ordained deacon at Norwich in 1903 and then priest in 1904. He had held office as curate at Ipswich, Hackney and Hull before taking up his first position in Nottinghamshire at Lenton where, in 1911, Francis was living with his wife Eleanor (nee Sorrell) whom he had married in 1907 at Islington, London.
Francis served with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in France in 1918 and was a recipient of the British War Medal.
He was the Vice-President of the Jacksdale, Pyehill and Westwood Honours and Memorial Committee and he returned to officiate at the unveiling of the Jacksdale War Memorial on 9th July 1921, giving a short address. As Vice-President he would have been instrumental in the fund raising and design of the war memorial. Below is a photograph of the Selston Parish Reverends taken in the grounds of Pye Hill House dated approx. 1915 and Reverend Kahn is one of them. Reverend Harrison, the elderly gentleman with a grey beard, is easily distinguishable and he died shortly afterwards in 1916. The remaining two are Rev. Kahn and Rev. Callister of Underwood, but it is not known which is which. The lady standing almost centre, in the white gown, is Miss Laverick.
In 1920 Reverend Kahn moved to Bunny, Notts, handing the position of Curate in Charge of St Mary’s over to the Reverend Victor Thomas South-Jagg M.C., another WW1 veteran, who served with the Sherwood Foresters.
He remained at Bunny until 1933, moving on to Suffolk and later Norfolk.
Reverend Kahn died in February 1951 at Beech Brough, Bacton, Norfolk. His wife Eleanor had died just a few weeks before him in the Cromer Cottage Hospital in January 1951.