John Hungerford Pollen (1820–1902) was an English architect and writer on crafts and furniture.
Life
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Pollen was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1845, with a parish in Leeds from 1847, writing of his experiences.[1][2] Pollen converted to Roman Catholicism in 1852.[3] He worked on numerous decorative projects in the 1850s, starting with the hall ceiling at Merton College, Oxford, where he was a Fellow from 1842; his conversion entailed his giving up that fellowship.[1]
Other works, mainly in collaboration, were on the University Museum in Oxford, and the Arthurian murals at the Oxford Union, in a group led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and including William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Val Prinsep, and Roddam Spencer Stanhope.[4]
He worked with John Henry Newman on church architecture and decoration, and was responsible for the design of the Catholic University Church in Dublin. He also worked on the Brompton Oratory.[5][6] Newman invited him to take up a position at the Catholic University of Ireland, and Pollen was Professor of Fine Arts there, from 1855 to 1857.[7]
He returned to England in 1857, settling in Hampstead, London. He worked for The Tablet, and through John Everett Millais expanded his contacts with the Pre-Raphaelite circle.[8]
Later he worked for the South Kensington Museum, where he was appointed assistant keeper in 1863, and was made editor to its science and art department, producing catalogues.[1] He compiled, with Henry Cole, a Universal Catalogue of Books on Art. This was a multi-volume project, beginning publication in 1870, its aim being to furnish a complete bibliographical record of art books in libraries of the West.[9][10]
He resigned his position at the South Kensington Museum to become private secretary to George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon, whom he then accompanied on a visit to India.[11]
There is a memorial stained glass window in the north aisle of St Mary of the Angels, Bayswater by James Powell & Sons based on a sketch of Pollen's for the Chapel of Studley Royal.[12]
Works
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- Letter to the Parishioners of St. Saviour's, Leeds (1851)
- Narrative of Five Years at St. Saviour's, Leeds (1851)
- A Description of the Trajan Column (1874) online text
- Ancient and modern Furniture and Woodwork (1876)
- Gold and Silver Smiths' Work
Family
editArchitect C. R. Cockerell was his uncle.[13] He married Maria Margaret La Primaudaye in 1855. She was known as an authority on the history of textiles, notably lace.[14]
They had ten children.[15] His second child was John Hungerford Pollen, Jesuit and writer;[16] his third child, Walter, died of fever in India;[17] his eighth child was inventor Arthur Pollen.[18] His daughter Anna wrote a biography of her father.[11]
The Pollen family archive is held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.[19][20]
Further reading
edit- Anne Pollen (1920) John Hungerford Pollen, 1820–1902
Notes
edit- ^ a b c Concise Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ "The Oxford Movement. Vol. 12. The Romantic Revival. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes". Retrieved 24 February 2016.
- ^ "Newman and the Church". Archived from the original on 23 December 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2008.
- ^ Carolyne Larrington, King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition (2006, p. 157.
- ^ "Page26". Archived from the original on 19 November 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2008.
- ^ "'South Kensington' and the Science and Art Department". Retrieved 24 February 2016.
- ^ Frederick O'Dwyer, The Architecture of Deane and Woodward (1997), p. 292.
- ^ Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Sidney Lee. Second Supplement. Volume 3. Neil – Young, article on Pollen.
- ^ "Book collections". Archived from the original on 6 May 2010. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
- ^ "National Art Library collection development policy: documentary materials". Archived from the original on 19 August 2009. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
- ^ a b "The Churchman". Churchman Company. 20 February 1912 – via Google Books.
- ^ ""Bayswater -St. Mary of the Angels", Taking Stock".
- ^ "Apps – Access My Library – Gale". Retrieved 24 February 2016.
- ^ "Maria Pollen – The Online Books Page". Retrieved 24 February 2016.
- ^ "John Hungerford Pollen: Family". 20 November 2020.
- ^ Christian Tapp (2005). "Pollen SJ, John Hungerford". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 24. Nordhausen: Bautz. cols. 1166–74. ISBN 3-88309-247-9.
- ^ "Obituary". The Times. No. 32660. London. 30 March 1889. col 1, p. 13.
- ^ Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy, 1889–1914 (1993), p. 76.
- ^ "New catalogue: Archive of John Hungerford Pollen and the Pollen family". 21 January 2022.
- ^ "Collection: Archive of John Hungerford Pollen and the Pollen Family | Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts". archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
External links
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