John Richard Thornhill Pollard was born in 1914 and spent his early childhood in Herefordshire, arriving there as a baby in 1915 when his father became manager of a draper's shop in Hereford. The family moved a few years later to Weobley, then an isolated village to set up a shop there. He was educated at the Hereford High School for Boys and the King's School, Ottery-St-Mary, gaining an MA in Classics from the University of London. He was commissioned in the Devonshire Regiment in 1939 and served in the forces in Africa, returning to do an MLitt at Exeter College, Oxford after the war. He subsequently pursued an academic career, initially at St Andrews University (1948-49), and at the University College of North Wales (now known as the University of Wales, Bangor) as lecturer and senior lecturer in classics from 1949-82 and 1987-89.
John Pollard is author of numerous articles and books including Journey To The Styx (1955), Helen Of Troy (1965), Seers, Shrines And Sirens: The Greek Religious Revolution In The Sixth Century BC (1965), The Long Safari (1967), Birds In Greek Life And Myth (1977) and an autobiographical work No County to Compare: Memories of a Herefordshire Childhood between the Wars, (1994).
He has travelled extensively and been active in sport throughout his life. He is married and has four children.
From the guide to the J.R.T. Pollard Papers, 1930-1999, (Bangor University)
