Trevor Sturgess Dies and Kent Loses Its Civic Chronicler

Trevor Sturgess, the Kent Messenger Group business editor who later served as a Deputy Lieutenant, died at home on 28 November 2025, aged 78. His wife Sue said an ambulance was called that Friday evening because he was having trouble breathing, and that it arrived too late.

He had left the newsroom in May 2013 after 26 years. He had not left the county’s civic circuit, its boardrooms, or the small literacy charity colleagues still named in his tributes.

An Ambulance Came Too Late in Otham

Sue’s account is short and specific. He was at home in Otham, near Maidstone, when his breathing failed. The crew could not revive him. He also leaves their daughter, Zoe.

John Nurden, a former Kent Evening Post colleague, had been with him three days earlier. They had lunch in Faversham on Tuesday 25 November 2025 with Ian Reed, another old Post hand. Nurden said he was totally shocked, and that Sturgess had seemed in fine form.

David Jones, the former Medway Messenger editor who worked with him for more than 30 years, said Trevor and Sue had been planning a trip to Peru and the Falklands for early 2026. Jones and his wife Lynda were friends with the couple away from work, which is why the Friday night still reads, in his words, as untimely.

Every Managing Director in Kent Knew His Name

Ian Carter, chief operating officer of Iliffe Media, the KM parent, called him a hugely respected and influential journalist. Carter said his business coverage was trusted and authoritative, and that the stories carried past the people they were written for.

Geraldine Allinson, who chaired the KM Group from 2006 to 2019 and now holds a Deputy Lieutenant’s commission of her own, put the same thought in plainer trade language.

As editor of Kent Business, he covered the commercial heartbeat of Kent for many years. His articles were read by a huge number of people and every MD, FD and CEO in Kent knew his name.

Geraldine Allinson, former KM Group chairman

That is the party the death actually hits. A county paper can replace a byline. A managing director who took Sturgess’s call because the name was already known cannot replace the caller.

Jones and Sturgess also ran the Medway Business Awards for more than 20 years after Chatham Dockyard closed, with Medway Council as the main sponsor and a brief to pull industry back into the towns. Jones said Trevor was totally dedicated as editor of Kent Business and gave 100% plus to the job, and that the death has left a gap in Kent journalism which will be hard to fill.

Chris Price, who followed him as KM business editor, wrote on 1 December 2025 that some features desks turn into an extended family, that Trev was a legend and a helpful voice after the baton passed, and that his were shoes no one could ever fill. Around that old desk he is still talked about as the head of the team, which is a newsroom fact more than a eulogy trick.

Kent Business Opened With a Cry for Help

He joined the KM Group in 1987, two weeks before the Great Storm, and started in the Gravesend and Dartford office. Nurden said he was originally a freelancer there, working with Ian Reed, before he became the group’s business editor.

In the early 1990s he set up the business desk at the Evening Post offices on Chatham High Street. In 1993 he moved to Larkfield and, with Brian Paine, launched the monthly Kent Business. Before KM he had reported in the Middle East on sport, diplomacy and the environment, and he had interviewed Pele, Kevin Keegan and Lester Piggott.

The first issue led on “Kent’s cry for help”, a demand that Whitehall look at the county’s jobless count of 77,795. When the paper marked 25 years in 2018, Kent had about 20,425 people on unemployment-related benefits. Sturgess kept a framed copy of that first edition at home and called the chair the best job in the company. He said he really loved it, and that they had covered the Channel Tunnel, the high speed line and other shocks to the Kent economy.

His own business hero, he said in 2013, was Sir Alastair Morton of Eurotunnel, who died in 2004. Morton’s fight with Margaret Thatcher over the tunnel was the example he named. The monthly later interviewed Thatcher herself, the Duke of York and more than one Bank of England governor. In its tenth anniversary year it was named best niche publication at the Newspaper Society Awards, a prize he still ranked among his proudest.

THE KENT BUSINESS YEARS

The award shelf was already long by then: BT Southern Business Journalist of the Year in 1992, Kent Journalist of the Year at the 1994 Shepherd Neame awards, an outstanding contribution prize at the same awards in January 2013, and another outstanding contribution honour at the Kent Excellence in Business Awards gala that year. He had judged Young Enterprise, the Prince’s Trust and Young Dragons. Carter, then KM editorial director, said in 2013 that he would be a very hard act to follow and a hugely important figure in the business community.

What a Deputy Lieutenant Does in Kent

Kent appointed him a Deputy Lieutenant in June 2012, a year before he stood down as editor. The post is unpaid and non-political. Deputies greet royalty, stand in at civic days, and feed local names toward honours and palace invitations. Allinson said that after he left KM he supported the lieutenancy through his writing, which is how a reporter’s second life actually looked: not a chain of office in a drawer, but copy still moving through the county’s ceremonial network.

The Kent Lieutenancy now describes its deputies as the eyes and ears of the lieutenancy, a ceiling of 70 posts across 1.7 million people, or about 25,000 residents for each deputy. Their knowledge is used in education, youth work, business and the rural economy. They flag possible royal visits, garden-party names, and groups that might fit the King’s Award for Voluntary Service.

HOW KENT USES ITS DEPUTY LIEUTENANTS

• Royal visits: Deputies greet and accompany royalty and heads of state in the county.
• Honours traffic: They advise on who might be put forward for honours or a palace garden party.
• Voluntary service: They help community groups seek the King’s Award for Voluntary Service.
• Local brief: They are used as a network in education, youth services, business and the rural economy.

On the ground that work was ordinary and dated. The Lord-Lieutenant’s office posted him at Maidstone’s Mela launch in July 2018, at Chinese New Year in Maidstone in January 2020, at an Armed Forces flag raising in June 2019, and at Kent County Council’s Commonwealth flag raising in March 2022. Kent Business had him opening the Dartford and Gravesham Business Awards at the Woodville in Gravesend in November 2016, three years after the formal retirement.

Deputy Lieutenant, Trevor Sturgess DL, was delighted to attend the Launch of @MaidstoneMela with @maidstonemayor which will take place at #WhatmanPark @MaidstoneRP on 22 July celebrating #cohesionarts and #community in #maidstone pic.twitter.com/SJSCFEXDTq

— Lord-Lieutenant of Kent (@LordLieutKent) July 10, 2018

He does not appear on the lieutenancy’s current public list of deputies, which is the quiet bureaucratic end of a commission. The office itself did not pause. In March 2026 the Lord-Lieutenant, the Lady Colgrain, new Deputy Lieutenants of Kent were named in the Gazette in the usual form, among them a retired colonel, a dean, and a CBE. The machine that used Sturgess as a pair of eyes in the business world kept appointing other pairs.

Acorns Read and Grow Was Already Gone

Allinson’s tribute also said he helped promote literacy in Kent as a trustee of the Acorns Read and Grow Charity. The Commission file is colder than that sentence. Acorns Read and Grow, charity number 1176239, was a grant-maker for reading and writing among children up to 15 in Kent. It did not fundraise from the public. Trustees were unpaid. It is now listed as removed from the charity register.

The CIO was registered on 12 December 2017 and taken off on 13 February 2024, a year and nine months before he died. Find that Charity, which republishes the Commission’s accounts, shows income fell to zero by 2022 against spending of £300, and six trustees on the 2021 return. The live object in the tributes was already a closed file.

ACORNS READ AND GROW MONEY, YEAR BY YEAR

The 2019 row is the only year spending ran well ahead of income, at £58,755 against £27,103. After that the line shrinks until there is nothing to grant. Naming him as a literacy trustee in late 2025 was a social truth and a register error at the same time. The children the objects named had already lost the vehicle. What remained was the habit of introducing him that way.

He Had Lunch in Faversham on Tuesday

Nurden’s lunch is the last dated sighting from people who knew the work. Sturgess talked through old jobs, seemed well, and went home to Otham. Jones had been hearing about Peru and the Falklands. Friday night closed both diaries.

HIS LAST DAYS AND THE FUNERAL PLAN

1. Tuesday 25 November 2025: Lunch in Faversham with John Nurden and Ian Reed.
2. Friday 28 November 2025: Dies at home in Otham after breathing trouble; the ambulance arrives too late.
3. Saturday 29 November 2025: KM colleagues publish tributes from Carter, Allinson, Jones and Nurden.
4. Monday 1 December 2025: Chris Price, his successor as KM business editor, writes that the shoes could not be filled.
5. Tuesday 6 January 2026: Funeral set for 11am at St Nicholas Church, Otham, then a reception at The Orchard, Spot Lane.

The family set the service for 11am on 6 January 2026 at St Nicholas Church, Otham, ME15 8SB, with the gathering afterwards at The Orchard, Spot Lane, ME15 8SE. That is a village church a short walk from the house, not a county-town set piece, which fits a man whose second job was turning up in other people’s towns with a lieutenancy brief and a reporter’s notebook still somewhere in the bag.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Was Trevor Sturgess Born?

A Companies House director record for Kent College Pembury Trustee Company Limited lists Trevor Michael Sturgess as born in March 1947, which matches his age of 66 at retirement in May 2013 and 78 at his death in November 2025. The same filing gives his occupation as editor.

What Other Trustee Post Did He Hold in Kent?

He was a director of Kent College Pembury Trustee Company Limited from 13 October 2005 until 31 August 2015, a school-governor style post separate from Acorns Read and Grow. The 2013 retirement note also said he sat on the Kent Business School advisory board and had been a school governor while still editing.

What Did Trevor Sturgess Do at the London Paralympics?

He was a Games Maker at the Paralympic table tennis event in 2012, the same year Kent made him a Deputy Lieutenant. He still played league table tennis then, and the retirement profile treated both as live habits rather than colourful asides.

How Did He Raise Money Away From the Newsroom?

By May 2013 he had ridden the London to Brighton bike ride for 10 years and, in KM’s wording, raised thousands of pounds for charity that way. He had also worked earlier for the Ministry of Defence (Navy) and HM Customs and Excise, posts that sat on his official biography beside the journalism.

Sue and Zoe were named as the family who remain. The lieutenancy has already gazetted other deputies. Kent Business is still a monthly. The grant charity is a closed Commission page. The lunch in Faversham is the last ordinary fact anyone put on the record.