Richard Pope-Hennessy

Richard Pope-Hennessy in 1927

Maj-Gen. Ladislaus Herbert Richard Pope-Hennessy (1875-1 March 1942), was a British Liberal Party politician and soldier of Irish Catholic descent.

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. 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.

Military career

Pope-Hennessy got highly decorated for participating in combat in Africa before World War I. During the latter he served in France, Iraq and India.[2]

He was Commander of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division and area from 1931-35. He served as a staff officer at the War Office and was Military Inter-Allied Commissioner of Control in Berlin. Subsequently he was for three years Military Attaché at Washington.[3]

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'.[4] 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.

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

References

  1. ↑ http://www.ukWhosWho.com
  2. 1 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. ↑ http://www.ukWhosWho.com
  5. ↑ British parliamentary election results 1918-1949, Craig, F. W. S.
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