GKL's Heritage and the Kenning Family History

Many people reading this will recognise the Kenning name as a leader in vehicle supply and servicing, which reached its peak in the 1970's.

Transport leasing was just one of the ways that the Kenning family led the way in the motor and haulage industries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and is one of their innovations that has since been adopted on a global scale. To understand GKL’s values and why it is what it is today it’s fascinating to look back to appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit that allowed Kennings to grow with the burgeoning motor industry.

The founder of the dynasty, Frank Kenning, was a miner in Derbyshire. In 1878 he was trapped in a cage following an accident with the winding gear and he vowed that, if he got out alive, he would never go underground again. Fortunately he did survive and, true to his word, he left the colliery and started his own business selling pots door to door. This led to the establishment of a hardware store in Clay Cross, near Chesterfield, and the acquisition of an old colliery horse for the princely sum of £4, which enabled Frank to take his goods further afield.

George Kenning, Frank’s son, was born in 1880 and, by the time he was eleven, he had joined his father in the family business. In addition to the hardware store, F Kenning and Sons became a leading distributor of paraffin oil throughout the Chesterfield area and, in 1901, signed an historic agreement with consolidated Petroleum Co Ltd (later to be better known as Shell and BP) to receive paraffin by rail and deliver it to customers by horse-drawn tankers.

On his father’s death in 1908 George took control of the family firm, helped by his younger brother Herbert. This was the start of a period of innovation and expansion, including those leasing contracts for bicycles and horses. Contract hire was not a known concept, so George wrote the first contract himself – and every contract, by every supplier since, is based to some extent on George’s originality and business acumen.

With the company’s involvement in transport and fuel oil, it was inevitable that the Kennings would become involved with the motor car. George won his first car in a competition run by a soap company. The car was to be given to the customer who collected the most soap wrappers and George, whose shop distributed the soap, cannily persuaded all of his customers to let him keep the wrappers. On taking delivery of his prize, he instantly saw great possibilities in the distribution and servicing of this new means of transport.

Motor Cars – a New Era
The Kenning’s first venture into the motor industry was in 1910, with an agency for BSA and Royal Enfield motorcycles. Five years later, they were appointed agents for Ford motor cars and, in 1919, George was introduced to William Morris (later Lord Nuffield) who, at that stage, was striving to manufacture small cars at affordable prices for the man in the street. Recognising the potential, George Kenning travelled to Cowley to bid for the sole agency for Morris cars in Derbyshire. To pinpoint exactly where Kenning had come from, Morris got out a map. He said, “You ask for the agency of Derbyshire and you live at Clay Cross, a little place near Chesterfield.” Kenning was quick to reply, “No, it is Chesterfield, near Clay Cross. After all, Cowley is not on the map except as a suburb of Oxford, but you make the finest light car here and I will put Cowley on the map. Give me the car and I will sell it!”

There and then, George offered to purchase 185 cars. At the time, he did not have the cash to pay for them: neither was it certain that Morris had the capacity to produce them, yet this did not deter the two men from doing business. Shortly afterwards, Kenning negotiated the sale of the first fleet of Morris cars ever sold: 181 two-seater Bullnose Morris Oxfords for Shell representatives. He went on to sell the first three fleets of trucks for Morris as well.

Salesmen like George Kenning were vital to the early expansion of Morris Motors, and he and William Morris became good friends. In 1927, George bought the entire output of the Morris factory for £62,925. During the 1920s, Kenning was the only company in the country to hold both Morris and Austin distributorships as well as the first agency for the truck-making firm Dennis.

Expansion and Diversification
In 1938 Kenning’s Limited became a public company and, through subsequent acquisitions, gained additional franchises for MG, Standard Triumph, Rover and Daimler cars. At the same time, Kenning’s was providing an increasing number of services to motorists, from retailing petrol and accessories to valeting: by 1939 the Sheffield and London depots could wash, vacuum and polish a car in eight minutes and the London depot could handle 500 cars per day.

George received a knighthood in 1943 for his public and political work, which included serving on the Urban District Council and Derbyshire County Council. He is still remembered in his home town through the donation of Kenning Park as a public recreation ground, in memory of his parents.

When Sir George died in 1956 his sons, George and David, took over the business and concentrated on expanding the Kenning Motor Group, as it was now known. The eighty depots that they inherited grew to 300 by the 1970s, the most notable acquisition being Car Mart: a London Austin distributor that held the Royal Warrant to supply vehicles to the Queen as well as a BMC import and distribution operation in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). By now, Kenning’s had more than 8,000 employees.

This was also a time of horizontal expansion. The Group developed Kenning Tyres into a national network to become one of the country’s largest suppliers of car, commercial and earth mover tyres. It even had three tyre remoulding factories and marketed its own labels – Fisk and John Bull tyres. Kenning’s built and operated two motorway service areas; had an extensive fuel distribution company for Shell-Mex and BP; manufactured vehicles (the famous three-wheeled W&E electric milk float at Shrewsbury and road tankers at Ossett); and ran a nationwide car rental company, Kenning Car Rental, which had a 5,000-strong fleet in 1970. Anyone who bought a car, drove a car, hired a car or had a car serviced in the 1970s and 1980s would recognise the name Kenning as a leader in many facets of the motor industry.

Sale and Dissolution
Following the deaths of both brothers in the early eighties, the Kenning Motor Group was bought by Tozer, Kemsley and Millbourn. The entity was divided up and the majority of the assets were disposed of, though a merger with another TKM franchised motor vehicle sales company, Wadham Stringer, saw the name live on for a while as Wadham Kenning. This finally disappeared when TKM sold their business to Inchcape. Kenning Car Rental is now owned by German company Sixt.

The Kenning Story Continues
In 1987, a year after the purchase by TKM, Sir George’s grandsons George, David and Richard – the fourth generation of Kennings – formed an independent company and bought the Kenning Motor Group’s Ford interests in Chesterfield and Sheffield. The company was named GK Group, after their grandfather’s initials. In the same year the new company bought a Ford dealership in south Buckinghamshire. Two of these were sold in the 1990s when Ford undertook a major review of its dealer network and chose to create larger territories with fewer main dealers.

The GK Group concentrated on its home territory, expanding the Chesterfield operation and adding locations at Staveley, Alfreton, Retford and Mansfield throughout the 1990s and, in April 1997, the leasing and Vauxhall operations were de-merged.

Two of the original three directors, George and David Kenning, remain as major shareholders and sole directors of the GK Group, which now has franchises for Ford, Mazda, SEAT, KIA and Daihatsu. Richard Kenning, a trained barrister, set up and heads the leasing operation (GKL), which now operates independently of the GK Group.