Kenna, John Corbett

Kenna was born in Australia, received all his initial education there, obtaining a general Arts degree, a diploma in Education, and an honours psychology degree . After that he became a member of the Australian Council for Educational Research. During World War II he was seconded to the educational branch of the Royal Australian Air Force, where he attained the rank of Officer. At the end of the war he was awarded a scholarship to study abroad. In the spring of 1948 he embarked upon a postgraduate course in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, in Berkeley. In 1950 Kenna came to England, where he was appointed a lecturer in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Manchester at a time when clinical psychology was new field in the UK. He took part in several studies of psychological disorders, mostly in collaboration with psychiatrists in his department at Manchester. These included research into the effects of sensory deprivation, schizophrenia, and several aspects of transsexualism.This last survey covered 14 years.

In 1956 Kenna was appointed the British Psychological Society's first honorary archivist, a post that he held for 23 years, during which time he recorded many interviews with important figures in the history of British psychology including; T. H. Pear, Cyril Burt, R .B. Catell, Ernest Jones, Anna Freud and Sir Frederic Bartlett. In 1961, the BPS held its Jubilee celebrations and Kenna provided contributions to celebratory publications.

After his retirement, Kenna moved to Swansea, where he became an honorary lecturer at the University. On returning from his last trip to Australia, he became very ill, never recovered and died on the 9th of July 2004.