Marjorie Pollard
Personal information
Born(1899-08-03)3 August 1899
Rugby, Warwickshire, England
Died21 March 1982(1982-03-21) (aged 82)
Bampton, Oxfordshire, England[1]
Height5 ft 7 in (170 cm)
Sport
Country United Kingdom
SportHockey

Marjorie Anne Pollard OBE (3 August 1899 – 21 March 1982) was an English field hockey and cricket player, film maker and writer. She was the first woman to commentate on sport for the BBC.[2]

Early life

Marjorie Pollard was born in Rugby, Warwickshire. She was educated at Peterborough County Grammar School for Girls, and St Peter's College, Saltley.[3][1]

Sports career

Pollard played for Northamptonshire county hockey association. She played hockey nearly every year for England from 1921 to 1937, playing 37 times and winning 41 caps.[4][5][6]

In October 1926, Pollard joined with several other women – all leading hockey players – help found the Women's Cricket Association.[3][6] In July 1929, the WCA organised their first public match: London and District v Rest of England. The game was held in Beckenham, with Pollard playing for the latter team.[6]

She edited and wrote the weekly Hockey Field for 24 years, and founded and then edited for 19 years from 1930, Women's Cricket. She also wrote for the newspapers Observer, Morning Post and Evening News.[7] Pollard was the first woman to commentate on sport for the BBC, her first BBC commentary was on a men's cricket match in 1935.[4]

Pollard narrowly missed the selection for the first England Women tour of Australia in 1934-35. She was considered past her best when Australia returned the trip three years later.[7]

In 1965, she was awarded an OBE.[3]

She was a keen film maker and although she did not play in the 1938 match between England and Wales, she filmed it. She filmed it at the same time as the BBC, but her film was in colour. Her films have recently been digitised.[8]

Death and tribute

In March 1982, suffering ill-health and the death of her long-term household companion May Morton, Pollard committed suicide with a shotgun.[7]

In 2020, a blue plaque was unveiled in her memory on the site of her former school, the County Grammar School in Peterborough, by the local Civic Society.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 "Marjorie Pollard". Peterborough Civic Society. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  2. ↑ Booth, Lawrence (2021). Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Bloomsbury USA. p. 272. ISBN 9781472975478.
  3. 1 2 3 Wilson, Judith. "Pollard, Marjorie Anne (1899–1982)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/65061. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. 1 2 3 "Plaque remembers first BBC woman sport commentator". BBC News. 25 June 2020. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  5. ↑ "Marjorie Pollard | English athlete". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 Bell, Jo (2021). On this day she : putting women back into history, one day at a time. Tania Hershman, Ailsa Holland. London. p. 312. ISBN 978-1-78946-271-5. OCLC 1250378425.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. 1 2 3 David Frith, Silence of the Heart
  8. ↑ "Marjorie Pollard Goes Home". www.hockeymuseum.net. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
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