Kent was born on 11 November 1903 in Tianjin, China, where his father, Percy Horace Braund Kent, OBE, MC, was a barrister in the consular court specialising in Anglo-Chinese commerce; his mother, Anna Mary née Simcox, was the daughter of an English clergyman.
[1][2] After graduation in 1926, Kent joined the practice of Sir Donald Somervell as a pupil, and two years later he was called to the bar.
At the same time, the market downturn after the Wall Street crash led him to pursue, briefly, a literary career.
But literary pursuits did not satisfy him and the need for a regular source of income brought on by the birth of his first child encouraged him to fully return to the legal profession.
He retired from Government service in 1963,[4] but remained active in law: he was Standing Counsel to the General Synod of the Church of England from 1964 to 1972 and Vicar-General of the Province of Canterbury from 1971 to 1976; he was, finally, Dean of the Arches from 1972 to 1976.