Richard Pope-Hennessy

Richard Pope-Hennessy
Richard Pope-Hennessy in 1927
Born	18 August 1875 London, England, United Kingdom
Died	1 March 1942 (aged 66) London, England United Kingdom
Service / branch	British Army
Rank	Major-General
Commands	4th Battalion, King's African Rifles 1st Bn, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry 50th (Northumbrian) Division
Known for	Sotik Massacre
Battles / wars	Second Boer War First World War
Awards	Companion 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. In 1905, he led a punitive expedition which resulted in the killings of 1,850 men, women and children of the Kipsigis tribe.

Background

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.

Military career

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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'. 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 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

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

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