Arthur Pollen
Encyclopedia
Arthur Joseph Hungerford Pollen (13 September 1866 – 28 January 1937) was a writer on naval affairs in the early 1900s who recognised the need for a computer-based fire-control system
. The system took twelve years to develop but included the world's first electrically powered mechanical analogue computer (called at the time the Argo Clock).
and Maria Margaret Pollen. His father being a leading convert to Catholicism
along with Cardinal Newman, Arthur was educated at the school which the latter founded in Birmingham
, The Oratory School
(1878–1884). He then went up to read Modern History
at Trinity College, Oxford
where he gained a second-class degree in 1888. In 1893 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn
. He then took an interest in parliamentary politics, standing as Radical
candidate for the Walthamstow Division
of Essex
in the General Election of 1895
which he lost; his 4,523 votes to the 6,876 of his opponent, Edmund Widdrington Byrne
, MP, QC
. After this setback he continued to speak at Liberal Party events, but declined to stand in the by-election
brought about by Byrne's resignation in 1897.
On 7 September 1898 he married Maud Beatrice, the only daughter of the leading Conservative
politician Joseph Lawrence
, (later Sir Joseph Lawrence, Bart.) who was also chairman of Linotype & Machinery Co. Ltd. With Maud he had one daughter, who died aged four, and two sons. In 1898 Pollen was made the managing-director of Linotype, which he ran successfully for the next decade.
, Pollen saw a naval gunnery practice near Malta
in 1900, and the accuracy was so poor that even at ranges of less than a mile the big guns could not reliably hit their targets. On the board of the Linotype Company at the time was Lord Kelvin
, widely regarded as Britain's leading scientist. It was Kelvin who proposed using an analogue computer to solve the equations which arise from the relative motion of the ships engaged in the battle and the time delay in the flight of the shell to calculate the required trajectory and therefore the direction and elevation of the guns. Kelvin's brother James Thomson
was responsible for producing a tidal analyser using a ball, disc and cylinder differential analyzer which was the original source of the suggested analogue computer.
However first accurate data is needed of the target's position and relative motion. Pollen developed a plotting unit (or plotter) to capture this data. He added a gyroscope to allow for the yaw of the firing ship. Again this required substantial development of the, at the time, primitive gyroscope to provide continuous reliable correction. Pollen utilised the resources of Linotype for his work, specifically the services of a designer named Harold Isherwood. Trials were carried out in 1905 and 1906, which although completely unsuccessful showed promise. To further the development of fire-control Pollen set up in 1909 the Argo Company, and in 1911 took a holding in the firm of Thomas Cooke & Sons of York
, who had been manufacturing components for his equipment.
Early on Pollen was encouraged in his efforts by the rapidly-rising figure of Admiral Jackie Fisher, Admiral Arthur Knyvet Wilson
and the Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes (DNO), John Jellicoe
. Many officers in the navy were naturally interested in the prospect of being able to have ranges calculated for them so that they could achieve a greater rate of hits against the enemy. In early 1906, while presenting his planned "Aim Correction" system to naval officers, he met for the second time a promising gunnery lieutenant, Frederic Dreyer. The nature of Pollen's work involved close cooperation with the Navy, and upon Dreyer's appointment as Assistant to the DNO with responsibility for fire-control he was invited to view Pollen's Linotype works at Broadheath
, near Altrincham
. Pollen had had a long relationship with Dreyer's predecessor, Lieutenant Harding.
Pollen continued his work, with tests carried out on Royal Navy warships intermittently. Equipment was repeatedly purchased, despite the misgivings of successive DNOs Reginald Bacon
and Gordon Moore
.
The fundamental difference between the systems was that the Dreyer system was a "dual rate" approach that plotted ranges and bearings separately, versus time rather than using a single rangefinder to take both ranges and bearings to drive the drawing of a plan view of own and target ships, as in the Argo system. The systems differed in other particulars.
The single prototype Dreyer Fire Control Table (called simply "the Original") did not include a gyroscope, though the first adopted for service in 1912—the Mark III—did. Conversely, the automatic plotting of rangefinder readings on the Original Dreyer table and early service examples was later discarded in favour of manual plotting keyboards which were capable of plotting the data of multiple rangefinders. Dreyer played a key role within the Admiralty in deciding which system to use, and always chose his own.
Certain aspects of the Dreyer Table Mk III were found by a subsequent Royal Commission
to be similar to Pollen's work and £30,000 compensation was paid to Pollen in 1926 based on a theoretical number of his Argo units which might have been fitted in Royal Navy ships, most of which were never constructed. Pollen's supporters have argued that the poor performance at the Battle of Jutland
Gallipoli of Naval gunnery were due to the shortcomings of the Dreyer system, but others cite the tactics of the commander of the British battlecruisers, Vice-Admiral David Beatty
.
Pollen's relationship with the admiralty had broken down to the extent that he had been removed from the list of recognised Naval contractors. The war also interrupted negotiations which had begun with foreign navies aimed at selling the argo system to them. Some units had been purchased by Russia before the outbreak of war and some more were sold, but no other countries purchased units. Pollen was thus under-employed. He wrote to a friend, Alfred Spender, editor of the Westminster Gazette
, asking whether he would be interested in articles about the naval war. Spender agreed. In April 1915 he accepted a post as a feature writer for Land and Water
, making this a full time employment rather just supplying one weekly article. His task was made easier by ongoing good relations with various naval officers he had met as part of his work on the Argo AC system. He remained in contact with James Masterton-Smith
, Private secretary
to the First Lord of the Admiralty, and with William Reginald Hall
, who had been impressed by tests conducted on his ship, HMS Natal
, and was appointed Director of Naval Intelligence shortly after the start of the war. Hall commented on the usefulness to him of a responsive journalist, should he need to present a story to the public. Pollen also embarked on a career as a lecturer, speaking at public meetings about naval affairs.
After news of the Battle of Jutland
began to break in Britain, based upon German reports of victory, Pollen attempted to redress the shortcomings of official reports issued by the admiralty, which as a terse statement of facts known to them, invited the worst possible interpretation of events. Writing for the 'Westminster Gazette' he attempted to stress the overarching result of the engagement, that the German fleet had fled in the presence of the British, and to spread this view amongst other journalists. This response to the news was in contrast to many other leading newspapers, which only belatedly began to regard the battle as a victory.
Pollen was generally supportive of the establishment and admiralty. However, on occasions he disagreed publicly with their handling of the war. Commentators, such as Winston Churchill
had written articles observing that British supremacy at sea was secured by the dominance of the British fleet over the German, even though no battle had been fought. This was in accord with theories of sea power, such as advocated by Alfred Thayer Mahan
. Pollen argued that the cost in this case of the unresolved conflict was that Germany retained significant control of the Baltic Sea
, and tied up the larger part of the British fleet patrolling the North Sea. The fleet might otherwise have been used combatting submarine attacks.
In April 1917 Pollen wrote an article in Land and water critical of the way the war against submarine attacks was being conducted, and against failures in administrative organisation of the admiralty. This was followed by another article of 3 May arguing Britain had lost control of the seas in the face of mounting losses of merchant shipping to submarines, which drew the attention of the official censor and could not be published. Reaction to the censorship of a respected columnist inevitably led to greater publicity of the issue than if the article had been published, and its contents became known. The admiralty had resisted introducing a convoy system for merchant ships for some time, believing it was impractical and that too few naval vessels were available as escorts. By the end of April the admiralty had agreed to start forming ships into convoys, although it remains a source of debate to what extent this was a result of public pressure, the direct intervention of the prime minister, David Lloyd George
or the natural result of convoy trials already being conducted. Although there was great concern at mounting shipping losses and shortages of materials and food, it also remains unclear to what extent the situation was sufficiently critical to have affected Britain's ability to conduct the war.
In June 1917 Pollen embarked on a visit to America to discuss possible sales of Argo systems. He was approached by John Buchan, Director of Propaganda in the British Foreign Office, asking that he could publicise the work of the navy while there and encourage the development of the American navy. Pollen sought to address a perception amongst Americans that the British fleet had failed to defeat the German fleet, or resolve the submarine issue, thus leaving American ships open to attack. It was felt that his position as a critic of British policy added to his credibility when defending it. The success of his visit led to an offer by the British government of a knighthood and salary, should he return to America and continue a propaganda campaign. Pollen declined, arguing that he would be received entirely differently if acting in an official capacity than as an independent commentator.
which argued that any positive actions credited to Jellicoe must have been the work of Admiral David Beatty
(The navy in Battle, 1918). The book was described by the author of the official report on Jutland as a work which teems with inaccuracies, and by Jellicoe's biographers as full of errors, and almost unreadable. Jellicoe wrote to a friend in 1921: It fell to me to turn down his inventions on more than one occasion. Ethel Beatty, wife of Admiral Beatty, made a point of becoming friendly with Pollen in May 1917. Pollen declared to her that he intended to have Jellicoe removed from his post within a month, and proceeded with a campaign seeking to impress his views upon anyone he could get to listen.
(BSA). He became an active member of the Council of the Federation of British Industries
and became its vice-president. He became chairman of the British Commonwealth Union
and espoused the role of the entrepreneur in growth of industry, campaigning against the growth of socialism. In 1926 the post of managing director of Linotype became vacant, and he returned to it, hiring one of the first management consultants, T. Gerald Rose, to help reorganise the company. He was invited to become chairman of BSA, but declined, not having sufficient time to manage two companies. In 1936 he was part of a group of Catholics who acquired the Catholic magazine, The Tablet
, and served as its chairman for a year while its fortunes were restored.
Fire-control system
A fire-control system is a number of components working together, usually a gun data computer, a director, and radar, which is designed to assist a weapon system in hitting its target. It performs the same task as a human gunner firing a weapon, but attempts to do so faster and more...
. The system took twelve years to develop but included the world's first electrically powered mechanical analogue computer (called at the time the Argo Clock).
Early life
Pollen was born on 13 September 1866, the sixth son and eighth child of eight sons and two daughters born to John Hungerford PollenJohn Hungerford Pollen (senior)
John Hungerford Pollen was an English artist and writer on crafts and furniture.-Life:He 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.He became a Catholic convert and left the...
and Maria Margaret Pollen. His father being a leading convert to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
along with Cardinal Newman, Arthur was educated at the school which the latter founded in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, The Oratory School
The Oratory School
The Oratory School is a Roman Catholic, independent school for boys in Woodcote, Berkshire. It is the last Catholic all-boys boarding school remaining in Great Britain. It has approximately 420 pupils...
(1878–1884). He then went up to read Modern History
Modern history
Modern history, or the modern era, describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages. Modern history can be further broken down into the early modern period and the late modern period after the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution...
at Trinity College, Oxford
Trinity College, Oxford
The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...
where he gained a second-class degree in 1888. In 1893 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...
. He then took an interest in parliamentary politics, standing as Radical
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
candidate for the Walthamstow Division
Walthamstow (UK Parliament constituency)
Walthamstow is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.- 1885–1918 :...
of Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
in the General Election of 1895
United Kingdom general election, 1895
The United Kingdom general election of 1895 was held from 13 July - 7 August 1895. It was won by the Conservatives led by Lord Salisbury who formed an alliance with the Liberal Unionist Party and had a large majority over the Liberals, led by Lord Rosebery...
which he lost; his 4,523 votes to the 6,876 of his opponent, Edmund Widdrington Byrne
Edmund Widdrington Byrne
Sir Edmund Widdrington Byrne was a British judge and Conservative Party politician.Byrne was born in Islington, London, and was the son of Edmund Byrne, solicitor, and his wife Mary Elizabeth, née Cowell. He was educated at King's College, London and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1867...
, MP, QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
. After this setback he continued to speak at Liberal Party events, but declined to stand in the by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
brought about by Byrne's resignation in 1897.
On 7 September 1898 he married Maud Beatrice, the only daughter of the leading Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
politician Joseph Lawrence
Joseph Lawrence (British politician)
Sir Joseph Lawrence was a Conservative Party politician.He was elected as Member of Parliament for Monmouth Boroughs at by-election in May 1901...
, (later Sir Joseph Lawrence, Bart.) who was also chairman of Linotype & Machinery Co. Ltd. With Maud he had one daughter, who died aged four, and two sons. In 1898 Pollen was made the managing-director of Linotype, which he ran successfully for the next decade.
Fire control
Through a relative, Commander William GoodenoughWilliam Goodenough
Admiral Sir William Edmund Goodenough GCB, MVO was a senior Royal Navy officer of World War I.-Naval career:Goodenough joined the Royal Navy in 1882. He was appointed Commander of the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth in 1905...
, Pollen saw a naval gunnery practice near Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
in 1900, and the accuracy was so poor that even at ranges of less than a mile the big guns could not reliably hit their targets. On the board of the Linotype Company at the time was Lord Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...
, widely regarded as Britain's leading scientist. It was Kelvin who proposed using an analogue computer to solve the equations which arise from the relative motion of the ships engaged in the battle and the time delay in the flight of the shell to calculate the required trajectory and therefore the direction and elevation of the guns. Kelvin's brother James Thomson
James Thomson (engineer)
right|300px|James Thomson was an engineer and physicist whose reputation is substantial though it is overshadowed by that of his younger brother William Thomson .-Biography:Born in Belfast, he grew up mostly in Glasgow...
was responsible for producing a tidal analyser using a ball, disc and cylinder differential analyzer which was the original source of the suggested analogue computer.
However first accurate data is needed of the target's position and relative motion. Pollen developed a plotting unit (or plotter) to capture this data. He added a gyroscope to allow for the yaw of the firing ship. Again this required substantial development of the, at the time, primitive gyroscope to provide continuous reliable correction. Pollen utilised the resources of Linotype for his work, specifically the services of a designer named Harold Isherwood. Trials were carried out in 1905 and 1906, which although completely unsuccessful showed promise. To further the development of fire-control Pollen set up in 1909 the Argo Company, and in 1911 took a holding in the firm of Thomas Cooke & Sons of York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, who had been manufacturing components for his equipment.
Early on Pollen was encouraged in his efforts by the rapidly-rising figure of Admiral Jackie Fisher, Admiral Arthur Knyvet Wilson
Arthur Knyvet Wilson
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson VC, GCB, OM, GCVO was an English Admiral and briefly First Sea Lord who was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry during the war in Sudan...
and the Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes (DNO), John Jellicoe
John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe
Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO was a British Royal Navy admiral who commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in World War I...
. Many officers in the navy were naturally interested in the prospect of being able to have ranges calculated for them so that they could achieve a greater rate of hits against the enemy. In early 1906, while presenting his planned "Aim Correction" system to naval officers, he met for the second time a promising gunnery lieutenant, Frederic Dreyer. The nature of Pollen's work involved close cooperation with the Navy, and upon Dreyer's appointment as Assistant to the DNO with responsibility for fire-control he was invited to view Pollen's Linotype works at Broadheath
Broadheath, Greater Manchester
Broadheath is a suburb of Altrincham in Greater Manchester, England. It is historically part of the county of Cheshire and has a Warrington postcode.At Broadheath's height as an industrial area, the industries supported perhaps 12,000 employees...
, near Altrincham
Altrincham
Altrincham is a market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on flat ground south of the River Mersey about southwest of Manchester city centre, south-southwest of Sale and east of Warrington...
. Pollen had had a long relationship with Dreyer's predecessor, Lieutenant Harding.
Pollen continued his work, with tests carried out on Royal Navy warships intermittently. Equipment was repeatedly purchased, despite the misgivings of successive DNOs Reginald Bacon
Reginald Bacon
Admiral Sir Reginald Hugh Spencer Bacon, KCB, KCVO, DSO was an officer in the Royal Navy noted for his technical abilities who was described by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jacky Fisher, as the man "acknowledged to be the cleverest officer in the Navy".-Family:Reginald was born at Wiggonholt in...
and Gordon Moore
Gordon Moore (Royal Navy officer)
Admiral Sir Gordon Moore KCB CVO was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Third Sea Lord.-Naval career:...
.
The fundamental difference between the systems was that the Dreyer system was a "dual rate" approach that plotted ranges and bearings separately, versus time rather than using a single rangefinder to take both ranges and bearings to drive the drawing of a plan view of own and target ships, as in the Argo system. The systems differed in other particulars.
The single prototype Dreyer Fire Control Table (called simply "the Original") did not include a gyroscope, though the first adopted for service in 1912—the Mark III—did. Conversely, the automatic plotting of rangefinder readings on the Original Dreyer table and early service examples was later discarded in favour of manual plotting keyboards which were capable of plotting the data of multiple rangefinders. Dreyer played a key role within the Admiralty in deciding which system to use, and always chose his own.
Certain aspects of the Dreyer Table Mk III were found by a subsequent Royal Commission
Royal Commission
In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...
to be similar to Pollen's work and £30,000 compensation was paid to Pollen in 1926 based on a theoretical number of his Argo units which might have been fitted in Royal Navy ships, most of which were never constructed. Pollen's supporters have argued that the poor performance at the Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...
Gallipoli of Naval gunnery were due to the shortcomings of the Dreyer system, but others cite the tactics of the commander of the British battlecruisers, Vice-Admiral David Beatty
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...
.
Journalism
At the outbreak of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Pollen's relationship with the admiralty had broken down to the extent that he had been removed from the list of recognised Naval contractors. The war also interrupted negotiations which had begun with foreign navies aimed at selling the argo system to them. Some units had been purchased by Russia before the outbreak of war and some more were sold, but no other countries purchased units. Pollen was thus under-employed. He wrote to a friend, Alfred Spender, editor of the Westminster Gazette
Westminster Gazette
The Westminster Gazette was an influential Liberal newspaper based in London. It was known for publishing sketches and short stories, including early works by Raymond Chandler, Anthony Hope and Saki, and travel writing by Rupert Brooke. One of its editors was caricaturist and political cartoonist...
, asking whether he would be interested in articles about the naval war. Spender agreed. In April 1915 he accepted a post as a feature writer for Land and Water
Land and Water
Land and Water was a British weekly journal published from 1914 to 1920, edited by the well-known Catholic writer Hillaire Belloc and devoted to the progress of the First World War and the events in its immediate aftermath...
, making this a full time employment rather just supplying one weekly article. His task was made easier by ongoing good relations with various naval officers he had met as part of his work on the Argo AC system. He remained in contact with James Masterton-Smith
James Masterton-Smith
Sir James Edward Masterton-Smith KCB, 1919; CB 1915 was a British civil servant.He was the son of Edward Smith, formerly a member of the Stock Exchange....
, Private secretary
Private Secretary
In the United Kingdom government, a Private Secretary is a civil servant in a Department or Ministry, responsible to the Secretary of State or Minister...
to the First Lord of the Admiralty, and with William Reginald Hall
William Reginald Hall
Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall, KCMG, CB, RN was the British Director of Naval Intelligence from 1914 to 1919...
, who had been impressed by tests conducted on his ship, HMS Natal
HMS Natal
HMS Natal may refer to:, a launched on 30 September 1905 and sunk by an internal explosion in the Cromarty Firth on 30 December 1915.* HMSAS Natal , a Loch class frigate, previously , renamed in 1944 and commissioned into the South African Navy later that year...
, and was appointed Director of Naval Intelligence shortly after the start of the war. Hall commented on the usefulness to him of a responsive journalist, should he need to present a story to the public. Pollen also embarked on a career as a lecturer, speaking at public meetings about naval affairs.
After news of the Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...
began to break in Britain, based upon German reports of victory, Pollen attempted to redress the shortcomings of official reports issued by the admiralty, which as a terse statement of facts known to them, invited the worst possible interpretation of events. Writing for the 'Westminster Gazette' he attempted to stress the overarching result of the engagement, that the German fleet had fled in the presence of the British, and to spread this view amongst other journalists. This response to the news was in contrast to many other leading newspapers, which only belatedly began to regard the battle as a victory.
Pollen was generally supportive of the establishment and admiralty. However, on occasions he disagreed publicly with their handling of the war. Commentators, such as Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
had written articles observing that British supremacy at sea was secured by the dominance of the British fleet over the German, even though no battle had been fought. This was in accord with theories of sea power, such as advocated by Alfred Thayer Mahan
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Alfred Thayer Mahan was a United States Navy flag officer, geostrategist, and historian, who has been called "the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century." His concept of "sea power" was based on the idea that countries with greater naval power will have greater worldwide...
. Pollen argued that the cost in this case of the unresolved conflict was that Germany retained significant control of the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
, and tied up the larger part of the British fleet patrolling the North Sea. The fleet might otherwise have been used combatting submarine attacks.
In April 1917 Pollen wrote an article in Land and water critical of the way the war against submarine attacks was being conducted, and against failures in administrative organisation of the admiralty. This was followed by another article of 3 May arguing Britain had lost control of the seas in the face of mounting losses of merchant shipping to submarines, which drew the attention of the official censor and could not be published. Reaction to the censorship of a respected columnist inevitably led to greater publicity of the issue than if the article had been published, and its contents became known. The admiralty had resisted introducing a convoy system for merchant ships for some time, believing it was impractical and that too few naval vessels were available as escorts. By the end of April the admiralty had agreed to start forming ships into convoys, although it remains a source of debate to what extent this was a result of public pressure, the direct intervention of the prime minister, David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
or the natural result of convoy trials already being conducted. Although there was great concern at mounting shipping losses and shortages of materials and food, it also remains unclear to what extent the situation was sufficiently critical to have affected Britain's ability to conduct the war.
In June 1917 Pollen embarked on a visit to America to discuss possible sales of Argo systems. He was approached by John Buchan, Director of Propaganda in the British Foreign Office, asking that he could publicise the work of the navy while there and encourage the development of the American navy. Pollen sought to address a perception amongst Americans that the British fleet had failed to defeat the German fleet, or resolve the submarine issue, thus leaving American ships open to attack. It was felt that his position as a critic of British policy added to his credibility when defending it. The success of his visit led to an offer by the British government of a knighthood and salary, should he return to America and continue a propaganda campaign. Pollen declined, arguing that he would be received entirely differently if acting in an official capacity than as an independent commentator.
Jutland and Jellicoe
Pollen became extremely critical of the actions of the British Grand Fleet, in particular as commanded by Jellicoe, and wrote a book about the Battle of JutlandBattle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...
which argued that any positive actions credited to Jellicoe must have been the work of Admiral David Beatty
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...
(The navy in Battle, 1918). The book was described by the author of the official report on Jutland as a work which teems with inaccuracies, and by Jellicoe's biographers as full of errors, and almost unreadable. Jellicoe wrote to a friend in 1921: It fell to me to turn down his inventions on more than one occasion. Ethel Beatty, wife of Admiral Beatty, made a point of becoming friendly with Pollen in May 1917. Pollen declared to her that he intended to have Jellicoe removed from his post within a month, and proceeded with a campaign seeking to impress his views upon anyone he could get to listen.
Post-War
After World War I the Argo company had effectively ceased trading, and interest in naval journalism declined. Pollen had continued as a part-time director of Linotype and now joined the board of the Birmingham Small Arms CompanyBirmingham Small Arms Company
This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited of Armoury Road, Small Heath, Birmingham B11 2PP or BSA Company or its successors....
(BSA). He became an active member of the Council of the Federation of British Industries
Federation of British Industries
The Federation of British Industries was founded by the Midlands industrialist Dudley Docker in 1916. It was composed of 124 firms which all gave £1,000 for its foundation. The FBI never took part in labour relations but progressively involved in tariff reform...
and became its vice-president. He became chairman of the British Commonwealth Union
British Commonwealth Union
The British Commonwealth Union was a protectionist organisation formed in the United Kingdom in 1916 to "found a solid business group in parliament" and to "press for the protective tariffs and restrictions on imports discussed at the Paris Economic Conference of 1916 and in the Balfour of...
and espoused the role of the entrepreneur in growth of industry, campaigning against the growth of socialism. In 1926 the post of managing director of Linotype became vacant, and he returned to it, hiring one of the first management consultants, T. Gerald Rose, to help reorganise the company. He was invited to become chairman of BSA, but declined, not having sufficient time to manage two companies. In 1936 he was part of a group of Catholics who acquired the Catholic magazine, The Tablet
The Tablet
The Tablet is a Catholic international weekly review published in London. Contributors to its pages have included Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Paul VI ....
, and served as its chairman for a year while its fortunes were restored.