Marjorie Pollard

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

She played for Northamptonshire county hockey association. She played hockey nearly every year for England from 1921 to 1937, playing 37 times.[2][3]

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.[4] In 1926, Pollard helped found the Women's Cricket Association.[1] 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.[4] 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.[2] In 1965, she was awarded an OBE.[1]

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.[5]

In March 1982, suffering ill-health and the death of her household companion, Pollard committed suicide with a shotgun.[4] 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.[2]

• http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/467871/Marjorie-Pollard
• http://monash.edu/library/collections/exhibitions/sport/virtual/photos/photo10.html
• All England Women's Hockey Association Collection at the University of Bath Library