Richard Pope-Hennessy

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

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,James who became a writer and John an art historian.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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