Hugh Alexander Pollock - Revision history

Bot: robot: Create/update articles. If there is a mistake please report on my talk page.

2022-09-09T03:51:27Z

robot: Create/update articles. If there is a mistake please report on my talk page.

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:21, 9 September 2022
Line 1:		Line 1:
	{{short description\|British editor}}		{{short description\|British editor}}
	{{EngvarB\|date=January ~~2022~~}}		{{EngvarB\|date=January 2018}}
	{{Use dmy dates\|date=January ~~2022~~}}		{{Use dmy dates\|date=January 2018}}
	{{Infobox person		{{Infobox person
	\| name = Hugh Alexander Pollock		\| name = Hugh Alexander Pollock
Line 39:		Line 39:
	Through Newnes Pollock met [[Enid Blyton]], a writer nine years his junior, after she had been commissioned to write a children's book about [[London Zoo]]. Their relationship developed, and shortly after he divorced his estranged first wife he married Blyton at Bromley Register Office in August 1924; the couple spent their honeymoon in Jersey. After their marriage the Pollocks lived in a flat in Chelsea. They moved out of central London in 1926 to live at Elfin Cottage in [[Beckenham]], and then to Old Thatch in [[Bourne End, Buckinghamshire]] in 1929. They had two daughters: [[Gillian Mary Baverstock\|Gillian Mary]] (1931–2007), and Imogen Mary (1935 - 2020). The family moved in 1938, settling in a large house in [[Beaconsfield]] in Buckinghamshire which was named [[Green Hedges]] by readers of Blyton's magazine ''[[Sunny Stories]]''.		Through Newnes Pollock met [[Enid Blyton]], a writer nine years his junior, after she had been commissioned to write a children's book about [[London Zoo]]. Their relationship developed, and shortly after he divorced his estranged first wife he married Blyton at Bromley Register Office in August 1924; the couple spent their honeymoon in Jersey. After their marriage the Pollocks lived in a flat in Chelsea. They moved out of central London in 1926 to live at Elfin Cottage in [[Beckenham]], and then to Old Thatch in [[Bourne End, Buckinghamshire]] in 1929. They had two daughters: [[Gillian Mary Baverstock\|Gillian Mary]] (1931–2007), and Imogen Mary (1935 - 2020). The family moved in 1938, settling in a large house in [[Beaconsfield]] in Buckinghamshire which was named [[Green Hedges]] by readers of Blyton's magazine ''[[Sunny Stories]]''.

	Pollock became a heavy drinker in the late 1930s. His marriage to Blyton came under severe strain,<ref name="ayrshire">{{citation \|last=Close\|first=Rob\|contribution=Hugh Pollock: the first Mr Enid Blyton \|year=2001 \|url=http://www.ayrshirehistory.org.uk/Blyton/blyton.htm\|publisher=Ayrshire Notes No.21 \|title = The first Mr Enid Blyton \|accessdate=29 April ~~2022~~}}</ref> and she had a series of affairs, the most serious being with Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters, a London surgeon, in 1941.		Pollock became a heavy drinker in the late 1930s. His marriage to Blyton came under severe strain,<ref name="ayrshire">{{citation \|last=Close\|first=Rob\|contribution=Hugh Pollock: the first Mr Enid Blyton \|year=2001 \|url=http://www.ayrshirehistory.org.uk/Blyton/blyton.htm\|publisher=Ayrshire Notes No.21 \|title = The first Mr Enid Blyton \|accessdate=29 April 2014}}</ref> and she had a series of affairs, the most serious being with Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters, a London surgeon, in 1941.

	Pollock rejoined the Army after the outbreak of the Second World War and worked in the [[Cabinet Office]]. He was appointed a major in the [[Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps]] in November 1940,<ref>{{London Gazette \|issue=35002 \|date=26 November 1940 \|page=6806 \|supp=y}}</ref> and was appointed the Commandant of the War Office School for Instructors of the [[British Home Guard\|Home Guard]] in 1940, based at a (now demolished) country house at [[Denbies]] in [[Dorking]].<ref name="ayrshire"/>		Pollock rejoined the Army after the outbreak of the Second World War and worked in the [[Cabinet Office]]. He was appointed a major in the [[Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps]] in November 1940,<ref>{{London Gazette \|issue=35002 \|date=26 November 1940 \|page=6806 \|supp=y}}</ref> and was appointed the Commandant of the War Office School for Instructors of the [[British Home Guard\|Home Guard]] in 1940, based at a (now demolished) country house at [[Denbies]] in [[Dorking]].<ref name="ayrshire"/>

	Pollock had met aspiring author [[Ida Crowe]], nineteen years his junior, after she submitted in the 1920s her first novel, ''Palanquins and coloured lanterns'', to George Newnes and the firm lost it during six months; Pollock retrieved the book, and it was finally published in the mid-1930s.<ref>{{cite news\|title=Romantic novelist Ida Pollock dies, aged 105\|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-25256881\|publisher=[[BBC News]]\| date=6 December 2013\|accessdate=30 April ~~2022~~}}</ref> After years of friendship, Pollock now asked Crowe to join him in Dorking in a secretarial role. During a bungled firearms training session on a firing range, he was hit by shrapnel and Ida contacted Enid, who declined to visit her husband because she was busy and hated hospitals.<ref name="thisisbath">{{Citation \| title=Ida's life is every bit as dramatic as her many novels \| url=http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Ida-s-life-bit-dramatic-novels/article-3000093-detail/article.html}}</ref> In May 1942, during Ida's visit to her mother's home in Hastings, a bomb destroyed the house. She escaped unhurt, but her mother was in hospital for two weeks. Pollock paid for Ida to stay at [[Claridges]] and he said he had decided to divorce his wife.<ref name="thisisbath"/>		Pollock had met aspiring author [[Ida Crowe]], nineteen years his junior, after she submitted in the 1920s her first novel, ''Palanquins and coloured lanterns'', to George Newnes and the firm lost it during six months; Pollock retrieved the book, and it was finally published in the mid-1930s.<ref>{{cite news\|title=Romantic novelist Ida Pollock dies, aged 105\|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-25256881\|publisher=[[BBC News]]\| date=6 December 2013\|accessdate=30 April 2014}}</ref> After years of friendship, Pollock now asked Crowe to join him in Dorking in a secretarial role. During a bungled firearms training session on a firing range, he was hit by shrapnel and Ida contacted Enid, who declined to visit her husband because she was busy and hated hospitals.<ref name="thisisbath">{{Citation \| title=Ida's life is every bit as dramatic as her many novels \| url=http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Ida-s-life-bit-dramatic-novels/article-3000093-detail/article.html}}</ref> In May 1942, during Ida's visit to her mother's home in Hastings, a bomb destroyed the house. She escaped unhurt, but her mother was in hospital for two weeks. Pollock paid for Ida to stay at [[Claridges]] and he said he had decided to divorce his wife.<ref name="thisisbath"/>

	Pollock was posted to the United States in June 1942 to advise on civil defence.		Pollock was posted to the United States in June 1942 to advise on civil defence.
Line 52:		Line 52:

	===Later life===		===Later life===
	Pollock left the Army for a second time after the Second World War with the rank of lieutenant colonel, but found Blyton prevented him returning to his old job at George Newnes, threatening to change her publisher if he was accepted back. She also used her influence to block him from working elsewhere in the publishing business, and he worked in the Cabinet Office. His heavy drinking resumed and he petitioned for bankruptcy in 1950.<ref>{{cite news \|last1=Alderson \|first1=Andrew \|last2=Trump \|first2=Simon \|date=20 October 2002 \|title=Adulteress Enid Blyton 'ruined her ex-husband' \|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1410705/Adulteress-Enid-Blyton-ruined-her-ex-husband.html \|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] \|access-date=12 September ~~2022~~}}</ref>		Pollock left the Army for a second time after the Second World War with the rank of lieutenant colonel, but found Blyton prevented him returning to his old job at George Newnes, threatening to change her publisher if he was accepted back. She also used her influence to block him from working elsewhere in the publishing business, and he worked in the Cabinet Office. His heavy drinking resumed and he petitioned for bankruptcy in 1950.<ref>{{cite news \|last1=Alderson \|first1=Andrew \|last2=Trump \|first2=Simon \|date=20 October 2002 \|title=Adulteress Enid Blyton 'ruined her ex-husband' \|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1410705/Adulteress-Enid-Blyton-ruined-her-ex-husband.html \|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] \|access-date=12 September 2018}}</ref>

	Meanwhile, his third wife decided to financially support the family writing romances. Her first contemporary romance was published by [[Mills & Boon]] in 1952. Being in print with several major international publishers at the same time, she decided to use multiple pseudonyms and she found success as a romantic novelist. It was their daughter's asthma that brought the Pollocks to Cornwall. After it, they lived at various places in England, Ireland, France, Italy, and Switzerland before settling in Malta. Their daughter Rosemary also became a writer from 1969 to 1981.		Meanwhile, his third wife decided to financially support the family writing romances. Her first contemporary romance was published by [[Mills & Boon]] in 1952. Being in print with several major international publishers at the same time, she decided to use multiple pseudonyms and she found success as a romantic novelist. It was their daughter's asthma that brought the Pollocks to Cornwall. After it, they lived at various places in England, Ireland, France, Italy, and Switzerland before settling in Malta. Their daughter Rosemary also became a writer from 1969 to 1981.

Bot: robot: Create/upgrade articles. If there is a mistake please report on my talk page.

2022-09-09T03:51:27Z

robot: Create/upgrade articles. If there is a mistake please report on my talk page.

New page

{{short description|British editor}}
{{EngvarB|date=January 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Hugh Alexander Pollock
| honorific_suffix = {{postnom|country=GBR|size=100%|DSO}}
| image = 
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = 
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1888|07|29}}
| birth_place = [[Ayr]], Scotland
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1971|11|06|1888|07|29}}
| death_place = [[Malta]]
| death_cause =
| resting_place = [[Imtarfa]], Malta
| nationality = British
| education =
| alma_mater =
| occupation = Publishing editor
| spouse = {{ubl|{{marriage|Marion Atkinson<br>|October 1913|1924|end=div}}|{{marriage|[[Enid Blyton]]<br>|28 August 1924|1943|end=div}}|{{marriage|[[Ida Pollock|Ida Crowe]]<br>|26 October 1943}}}}
| children = 5
}}

[[Lieutenant colonel (United Kingdom)|Lieutenant Colonel]] '''Hugh Alexander Pollock''' {{postnom|country=GBR|DSO}} (29 July 1888 – 6 November 1971) was a British publishing editor, who served as a soldier in the [[Royal Scots Fusiliers]] in the First World War and in the [[Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps]] in the Second World War. Married three times, he was the first husband of [[Enid Blyton]], and then [[Ida Pollock]], both writers.

==Biography==

===Early life===
Hugh Alexander Pollock was born in [[Ayr]], Scotland, the elder of the two sons of bookseller and publisher William Smillie Pollock (1858–1942) and his wife Jessie Smith McBride. He was educated at [[Ayr Academy]]. He and his younger brother Fred worked in his father's business.

He joined the British Army, and became a second lieutenant in the 5th Battalion of the [[Royal Scots Fusiliers]] in May 1912.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28614 |date=4 June 1912 |page=4043}}</ref> He married Marion Atkinson in October 1913, at the Hotel Dalblair in Ayr. They had two sons, William Cecil Alexander (1914–16) and Edward Alistair (1915–69).

In the First World War, he served with his regiment in [[Gallipoli]], [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] and France. He was a captain, serving as an adjutant, in September 1915.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=29337 |date=22 October 1915 |page=10488 |supp=y}}</ref> From December 1915 to May 1916, he had served as commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front.<ref name="ayrshire"/> He had been promoted to major, attached to the 12th Battalion, when he was awarded the [[Distinguished Service Order]] in 1919.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=31370 |date=30 May 1919 |page=6819}}</ref> After the war, he served as a temporary captain in the Indian Army.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=32133 |date=23 November 1920 |page=11351}}</ref>

===Publisher and marriage to Enid Blyton===
After leaving the army Pollock moved to England and joined the publishers [[George Newnes Ltd|George Newnes]] in London. He worked with [[Winston Churchill]] in the 1920s, editing Churchill's six-volume narrative history ''[[The World Crisis]]'', published between 1923 and 1931.

Through Newnes Pollock met [[Enid Blyton]], a writer nine years his junior, after she had been commissioned to write a children's book about [[London Zoo]]. Their relationship developed, and shortly after he divorced his estranged first wife he married Blyton at Bromley Register Office in August 1924; the couple spent their honeymoon in Jersey. After their marriage the Pollocks lived in a flat in Chelsea. They moved out of central London in 1926 to live at Elfin Cottage in [[Beckenham]], and then to Old Thatch in [[Bourne End, Buckinghamshire]] in 1929. They had two daughters: [[Gillian Mary Baverstock|Gillian Mary]] (1931–2007), and Imogen Mary (1935 - 2020). The family moved in 1938, settling in a large house in [[Beaconsfield]] in Buckinghamshire which was named [[Green Hedges]] by readers of Blyton's magazine ''[[Sunny Stories]]''.

Pollock became a heavy drinker in the late 1930s. His marriage to Blyton came under severe strain,<ref name="ayrshire">{{citation |last=Close|first=Rob|contribution=Hugh Pollock: the first Mr Enid Blyton |year=2001 |url=http://www.ayrshirehistory.org.uk/Blyton/blyton.htm|publisher=Ayrshire Notes No.21 |title = The first Mr Enid Blyton |accessdate=29 April 2022}}</ref> and she had a series of affairs, the most serious being with Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters, a London surgeon, in 1941.

Pollock rejoined the Army after the outbreak of the Second World War and worked in the [[Cabinet Office]]. He was appointed a major in the [[Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps]] in November 1940,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=35002 |date=26 November 1940 |page=6806 |supp=y}}</ref> and was appointed the Commandant of the War Office School for Instructors of the [[British Home Guard|Home Guard]] in 1940, based at a (now demolished) country house at [[Denbies]] in [[Dorking]].<ref name="ayrshire"/>

Pollock had met aspiring author [[Ida Crowe]], nineteen years his junior, after she submitted in the 1920s her first novel, ''Palanquins and coloured lanterns'', to George Newnes and the firm lost it during six months; Pollock retrieved the book, and it was finally published in the mid-1930s.<ref>{{cite news|title=Romantic novelist Ida Pollock dies, aged 105|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-25256881|publisher=[[BBC News]]| date=6 December 2013|accessdate=30 April 2022}}</ref> After years of friendship, Pollock now asked Crowe to join him in Dorking in a secretarial role. During a bungled firearms training session on a firing range, he was hit by shrapnel and Ida contacted Enid, who declined to visit her husband because she was busy and hated hospitals.<ref name="thisisbath">{{Citation | title=Ida's life is every bit as dramatic as her many novels | url=http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Ida-s-life-bit-dramatic-novels/article-3000093-detail/article.html}}</ref> In May 1942, during Ida's visit to her mother's home in Hastings, a bomb destroyed the house. She escaped unhurt, but her mother was in hospital for two weeks. Pollock paid for Ida to stay at [[Claridges]] and he said he had decided to divorce his wife.<ref name="thisisbath"/>

Pollock was posted to the United States in June 1942 to advise on civil defence.

Pollock and Blyton were divorced in 1943. Blyton married her lover Darrell Waters on 20 October 1943, and Pollock and Crowe were married at Guildhall Register Office six days later. After the marriages, Enid changed the surname of their daughters and stopped him from contacting them, and he did not see them again. The only child of his third marriage, [[Rosemary Pollock|Rosemary]], was born in 1944.

He was a lieutenant colonel in the [[Royal Pioneer Corps]] when appointed an Officer in the US [[Legion of Merit]] in 1947.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=37853 |date=14 January 1947 |page=323 |supp=y}}</ref>

===Later life===
Pollock left the Army for a second time after the Second World War with the rank of lieutenant colonel, but found Blyton prevented him returning to his old job at George Newnes, threatening to change her publisher if he was accepted back. She also used her influence to block him from working elsewhere in the publishing business, and he worked in the Cabinet Office. His heavy drinking resumed and he petitioned for bankruptcy in 1950.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Alderson |first1=Andrew |last2=Trump |first2=Simon |date=20 October 2002 |title=Adulteress Enid Blyton 'ruined her ex-husband' |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1410705/Adulteress-Enid-Blyton-ruined-her-ex-husband.html |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |access-date=12 September 2022}}</ref>

Meanwhile, his third wife decided to financially support the family writing romances. Her first contemporary romance was published by [[Mills & Boon]] in 1952. Being in print with several major international publishers at the same time, she decided to use multiple pseudonyms and she found success as a romantic novelist. It was their daughter's asthma that brought the Pollocks to Cornwall. After it, they lived at various places in England, Ireland, France, Italy, and Switzerland before settling in Malta. Their daughter Rosemary also became a writer from 1969 to 1981.

Pollock died at 82, on 8 November 1971 in Malta, and is buried at the military cemetery at [[Imtarfa]]. His family returned to England, where his wife died on 3 December 2013, at 105.

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:1888 births]]
[[Category:1971 deaths]]
[[Category:British editors]]
[[Category:Royal Scots Fusiliers officers]]
[[Category:Royal Pioneer Corps officers]]
[[Category:People from Ayr]]
[[Category:Burials at Imtarfa Military Cemetery]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:British Indian Army officers]]