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Richard Pope-Hennessy

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Richard Pope-Hennessy
Richard Pope-Hennessy in 1927
Born18 August 1875
London, England, United Kingdom
Died1 March 1942 (aged 66)
London, England United Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
RankMajor-General
Commands4th Battalion, King's African Rifles
1st Bn, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
50th (Northumbrian) Division
Known forSotik Massacre
Battles/warsSecond Boer War
First World War
AwardsCompanion of the Order of the Bath
Distinguished Service Order

Major-General Ladislaus Herbert Richard Pope-Hennessy CB DSO (18 August 1875 – 1 March 1942) was a British Army officer of Irish Catholic descent who served in both the Second Boer War and First World War.[1] In 1905, he led a punitive expedition which resulted in the killings of 1,850 men, women and children of the Kipsigis tribe.

Background

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A young Richard, pictured with his parents

Pope-Hennessy 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.[2]

Military career

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Pope-Hennessy was commissioned into the Oxfordshire Light Infantry in 1895.[2] He was deployed to South Africa and served with the West African Frontier Force during the Second Boer War.[2]

In June 1905, in response to attacks on native Maasai people by the Kipsigis people in the East Africa Protectorate, Pope-Hennessy led an expedition to subdue the latter. During the expedition, Pope-Hennessy's men raided the town of Sotik, resulting in a massacre which involved the deaths of 1,850 men, women and children.[3][4]

Following the success of the expedition, Pope-Hennessy was made 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.[2]

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.[2][5]

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.[6] He became General Officer Commanding 50th (Northumbrian) Division in 1931 before retiring in 1935.[7]

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.[5]

Political career

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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'.[2] 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.[8]

General Election 1935: Tonbridge[8] 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

Personal life

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He married, in 1910, Una Birch a writer, historian and biographer. They had two sons,[2] both of whom were gay: James, who became a writer, and Sir John, an art historian.[9]

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

References

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  1. ^ "FamilySearch.org". ancestors.familysearch.org. Retrieved 6 November 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Thom's Irish who's who. Alexander Thom. 1923. p. 208.
  3. ^ "London Gazette" (PDF).
  4. ^ "How Sotik massacre, Koitalel killing opened area to white settlers". Buinness Daily. 28 February 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  5. ^ a b James Wassermann (ed.): Secret Societies: Illuminati, Freemasons and the French Revolution. Nicolas Hayes, 2007, ISBN 978-0892541324, pp. 49-50
  6. ^ The Times House of Commons, 1935
  7. ^ "Army Commands" (PDF). Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  8. ^ a b British parliamentary election results 1918-1949, Craig, F. W. S.
  9. ^ Quennell, P., Introduction to A Lonely Business – A Self-Portrait of James Pope-Hennessy, 1981, p. xv.
Military offices
Preceded by GOC 50th (Northumbrian) Division
1931–1935
Succeeded by