 C.F. Pollock (centre) with John Dunville (left) at the start of the 1908 Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett. This photograph is from Robert Lambart Dunville's albums, which are in the care of the RAF Museum, London. |
Charles Frederick Pollock was born on 17 July 1866, the son of Arthur Julius Pollock M.D. F.R.C.P. [Doctor of Medicine, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians] (1835-1890) and Ellen Bailey (d. 1895). He had three older siblings: Caroline Pollock (1862-1941), who married Thomas William Waller, Captain Arthur Julius Pollock (1863-1914), Royal Artillery, and Sir Henry Edward Pollock (1864-1953), a barrister and King's Counsel.
C.F. Pollock was a practising solicitor.
He made several flights by balloon across the English Channel, at least one flight across the Irish Sea, and on two occasions he took part in the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett. His victories included the International Balloon Contest from Hurlingham and, for Mrs. John Dunville, the Hedges-Butler Challenge Trophy. He was awarded the Royal Aero Club's silver medal in 1911.
Two of his first flights across the English Channel, from Britain to continental Europe, were in 1906 and 1907. The flights were in the February of each of those years, and the winter weather brought the north winds which made the flights possible. On 3 February 1906 C.F. Pollock flew with Mr. Dale, a fellow member of the Aero Club, from Wandsworth in the balloon Vivienne III to the French coast near Dieppe. On 21 February 1907 he piloted the Hon. Mrs. Assheton Harbord in her balloon, the Nebia, from Chelsea to Stavelot in Belgium. The 1906 flight took 3 hours and 20 minutes but the 1907 flight lasted over 10 hours. Both flights landed in snowstorms.
C.F. Pollock's entries in the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett were as co-pilot to Professor A.K. Huntingdon in the balloon Zephyr in September 1906 and as co-pilot to John Dunville in the balloon Banshee in August 1908.
In May 1908 C.F. Pollock, in the balloon Valkyrie and accompanied by the Hon. Mrs. Assheton Harbord, Miss Moore-Brabazon, Mr. D. Bingham, and Mr. R.A. Colville, won the International Balloon Contest from Hurlingham by landing one mile south of the goal of Burchett's Green Inn, three miles from Maidenhead.
In December 1908 John Dunville, C.F. Pollock, and Philip Gardner won the Lord Northcliffe Cup by flying the balloon Banshee from Chelsea Gas Works to Crailsheim, near Stuttgart in Germany. In February 1910 John Dunville and C.F. Pollock flew across the Irish Sea in the balloon St. Louis. The flight took off from the Dublin Gas Company in Dublin and landed at Birtles near Macclesfield, Cheshire.
C.F. Pollock flew Mrs. John Dunville in Banshee II in at least one of the flights in which she won the Hedges-Butler Challenge Trophy (1912, 1913, 1914). Philip Gardner was a passenger.
In the First World War he served in the Army as a balloon instructor, attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) and the Air Force Cross (A.F.C.).
C.F. Pollock's name appears on the letterhead of the solicitors Harrison, Pollock & Harrison, Late C.&S. Harrison & Co. On the left of the letterhead are the names W. Sidney Harrison, C.F. Pollock and G.D. Harrison. The name of W. Sidney Harrison has been deleted by a single line. On the right of the letterhead is the address of the firm: Vernon House, (SICILIAN AVENUE), Bloomsbury Square, W.C. The letterhead is on a letter dated July 9th 1917, addressed to the Secretary of State for War, War Office, Whitehall, S.W. and signed Harrison, Pollock & Harrison. The letter is titled 'JOHN SPENCER DUNVILLE, deceased', and acting for Squadron-Commander John Dunville Dunville it states that certain allowances are due in respect of the late Lieutenant Dunville, from the 1st June to the 27th June.
C.F. Pollock died on 17 July 1919 on his fifty-third birthday. He is not known to have married or to have had any children.
Flights by the Dunvilles and Cups Won
Col. John Dunville Dunville, CBE, DL (1866-1929): The Famous Belfast Balloonist
The 1908 Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett