Richard Pope-Hennessy

Major-General Ladislaus Herbert Richard Pope-Hennessy CB DSO (1875 – 1 March 1942) was a British Army officer and Liberal Party politician of Irish Catholic descent.

Richard Pope-Hennessy
Richard Pope-Hennessy in 1927
Born	1875
Died	1 March 1942
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Rank	Major-General
Commands held	4th Battalion, King's African Rifles 1st Bn, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry 50th (Northumbrian) Division
Battles/wars	Second Boer War First World War
Awards	Companion of the Order of the Bath Distinguished Service Order

Background

A young Richard, pictured with his parents

He was the eldest son of Sir John Pope-Hennessy MP, of Rostellan Castle, County Cork and Catherine Elizabeth Low. He was educated at Beaumont College.[1]

Military career

Pope-Hennessy was commissioned into the Oxfordshire Light Infantry in 1895.[1] He was deployed to South Africa and served with the West African Frontier Force during the Second Boer War.[1] He subsequently became commandant of the 4th Battalion, King's African Rifles in 1906 for which service was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order in 1908.[1]

During the First World War he became commanding officer of the 1st Battalion the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in Mesopotamia in 1916 and then became a staff officer with the British Indian Army in 1917.[1][2]

After the war he served as a staff officer at the War Office and then was Military Inter-Allied Commissioner of Control in Berlin. Subsequently he spent three years as military attaché in Washington D.C.[3] He became General Officer Commanding 50th (Northumbrian) Division in 1931 before retiring in 1935.[4]

Pope-Hennessy published a number of books an articles on military matters and in one of them he predicted the technique of the German Blitzkrieg.[2]

Political career

He took particular interest in military matters and in issues affecting his native Ireland. In 1919 he had published 'The Irish Dominion: a Method of Approach to a Settlement'.[1] He was Liberal candidate for the Tonbridge Division of Kent at the 1935 General Election. Tonbridge was a safe Conservative seat that they had won at every election since it was created in 1918. The Liberal Party had not fielded a candidate at the previous General election and he was not expected to win and finished a poor third.[5]

General Election 1935: Tonbridge[5] Electorate 56,106

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Rt Hon. Herbert Henry Spender-Clay	23,460	61.3
	Labour	F M Landau	9,405	24.6
	Liberal	Ladislaus Herbert Richard Pope-Hennessy	5,403	14.1
Majority			14,055	36.7
Turnout				68.2
	Conservative hold		Swing

Family

He married, in 1910, Una Birch a writer, historian and biographer. They had two sons,[1] James who became a writer and John an art historian.[6]

Death

Friary Churchyard of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley, 2017

He died in 1942 and is buried alongside his wife at Friary Church of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley.[7]

References

1. Thom's Irish who's who. Alexander Thom. 1923. p. 208.
2. James Wassermann (ed.): Secret Societies: Illuminati, Freemasons and the French Revolution. Nicolas Hayes, 2007, ISBN 978-0892541324, pp. 49-50
3. The Times House of Commons, 1935
4. "Army Commands" (PDF). Retrieved 1 June 2020.
5. British parliamentary election results 1918-1949, Craig, F. W. S.
6. Quennell, P., Introduction to A Lonely Business – A Self-Portrait of James Pope-Hennessy, 1981, p. xv.
7. "Ladislaus Herbert Richard Pope-Hennessy". Find A Grave Memorial. Retrieved 2 June 2020.

Military offices
Preceded by Henry Newcome	GOC 50th (Northumbrian) Division 1931–1935	Succeeded by William Herbert