Kenneth William Blackburne (1907-1980) was a colonial administrator. After joining the Colonial Service in 1930, he was sent to Nigeria for his cadetship and spent five years there, first as Assistant District Officer and then as Private Secretary to the office of Lieutenant Governor. In 1935, he was made Assistant District Commissioner for Nazareth, Palestine. In 1938, he became Acting District Commissioner for Galilee, but returned to Great Britain six months later. His next three years were spent in the Colonial Office, first as Acting Assistant Principal and then as Principal. In 1941, he became Colonial Secretary of the Gambia, where he compiled a comprehensive report on development and welfare in the Gambia. Another move in 1943 saw him take up the post of Administrative Secretary to the Comptroller for Development and Welfare in the West Indies. During this period, he was based mainly in Barbados. From 1947, he worked in London as the Colonial Office's first Director of Information Services. From 1950 to 1956, he served as Governor of the Leeward Islands, where he was particularly concerned with building preservation and restoration. His final postings before his retirement were in Jamaica, where he became Governor in 1957, and then Governor General after the island's independence in 1962. Awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire), KCMG (Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George), GBE (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire), and GCMG (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George), he was also the author of Development and Welfare in the Gambia (s.l., Bathurst, 1943) and Lasting Legacy - a Story of British Colonialism (London, Johnson, 1976). In 1935, he married Bridget Senhouse Constant Wilson, with whom he had two children.