Career
She is notable for being the first woman in Great Britain to be given equal pay. Kent took a job as a welder at Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth in 1941, where she was paid £5 6s a week. She became the first woman to be employed at the dockyard.
Kent had the advantage of being only 4 feet 11 inches tall, meaning that she was small enough to weld in places her male colleagues could not such as torpedo tubes.
In 1943, she was given a pay rise, earning £6 6s. This was higher wage than the average for a male manual worker, which was £5 8s 6d.
After the war had finished in 1945, she left her job when the male workforce returned from the front. She took up a new job as a barmaid.
He died in 1996, aged 86.
I was the first woman to work as a welder there. lieutenant made me a bit uncomfortable that I was the first woman to earn the same as the men - and in some cases I was earning more than them. All the men I worked with were marvellous and they didn"t seem to mind me earning the same.
None of them ever dared say it, but I think they knew I was worth as much as them, if not more."
Kent had an elder sister, Minna Algate, who died aged 106.
