When the 1745 Jacobite Rising began in August 1745, he was Governor, Berwick-upon-Tweed. He reportedly joked Sir John Cope, defeated at the Battle of Prestonpans in September, was the first general to bring news of his own defeat but this seems to have been a later invention by the author Sir Walter Scott. Kerr was appointed Governor of Edinburgh Castle when government forces under General Handasyde retook the city on 14 November. He died in London in 1752.