London 25th Regt

Hugh was born in Marylebone in 1887/8 [Birth registration - Mar Q, 1888, Marylebone, 1a 553]

In the 1891 census he was living with his grandfather Joseph Pollard, a farmer "living on his own means" in Pirton Hertfordshire. In the 1901 census he is shown at Westminster School.

He married Ruth M. Gibbons in 1915 in Marylebone.

London Gazette - 15 Jan 1915, pg.495

25th (County of London) Cyclist Battalion, The London Regiment
Second Lieutenant H.B.C. Pollard to be a Lieutenant (temporary), and to remain seconded. Dated 6th November 1914.

The recently released Special Operations Executive (SOE) personal file of Major Hugh Bertie Campbell Pollard (HS 9/1200/5) sheds new light on the man who helped fly General Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco, leading ultimately to the overthrow of the democratically elected republican government and thirty-six years of brutal dictatorship.

Contrary to the previous portrayal of Pollard, a genial, rough-and-ready gung-ho ‘adventurer’ who flew the future Caudillo to Morocco on a whim, the files reveal Pollard to have been an experienced British intelligence officer, talented linguist, and firearms expert with considerable firsthand experience of wars and revolutions in Mexico, Morocco, and Ireland, where he had served as a police adviser in Dublin Castle during the ‘stormy days’ of the Black and Tans in the early 1920s.

Pollard, who listed his hobbies in Who's Who as ‘hunting and shooting’, was the sporting editor of Country Life and a member of Lord Leconfield's hunt. He was also a renowned and passionate firearms expert having written numerous books on the subject including the section on ‘small arms’ for the official war office textbook. His friend Douglas Jerrold, who himself later served in British intelligence, recalled that Pollard ‘looked and behaved, like a German Crown Prince and had a habit of letting off revolvers in any office he happened to visit’. Once Jerrold plucked up the courage to ask Pollard if he had ever killed anybody.

GRAHAM D. MACKLIN at The National Archives, Kew

His publications :-

Automatic pistols	1920
The Book of the Pistol & Revolver. [With illustrations.]	1917
British & American Game-Birds. By H. B. C. Pollard	1945
A Busy Time in Mexico. An unconventional record of Mexican incident. [With illustrations.]	1913
Game birds and game bird shooting	1936
Game Birds. Rearing, preservation and shooting	1929
The Gun room guide	1930
Riding and Hunting (First pub. As 'Hard-up on Pegasus')	1931
History of firearms /	1926
The Mystery of Scent.	1937
Secret societies of Ireland	1922
Shot-Guns: their history and development. [With plates.]	1923
The Sportsman’s Cookery Book	1926
The Story of Ypres	1917
The Territorial Monthly. A magazine devoted to the interests of the Territorial Forces ... Edited by Hugh B. C. Pollard vol. 1. no. 1-6. June-Dec. 1912.	1912
Wildfowl & Waders [Depicted by the late Frank Southgate ... and described by Hugh B. C. Pollard.]	1928

Source - British Library catalogue

Manuscript Collection at The British Library

Pollard (Hugh Bertie Campbell). Editor, `Discovery'. Correspondence with Marie Stopes 1924 Partly copy, partly signed
Add. 58695 ff. 77-79 & Add. 58696 ff. 120, 191 & Add. 58697 f. 159

'The Institution of Mechanical Engineers - List of Members 1st March 1907'

pg 202 -
1906. Pollard, Hugh Bertie Campbell, School of Practical Engineering, Crystal Palace, Sydenham, London, SE
pg 220 -
List of Members.- 1907 - Pollard, H. B. C. G.

Acknowledgements :-
Wikipedia
National Archives, Kew.