Tony Pollard (archaeologist)

Last updated

Tony Pollard (born 1965) is an archaeologist specialising in the archaeology of conflict. He is Professor of Conflict History and Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, where is based in the Scottish Centre for War Studies and Conflict Archaeology. He academic lead and an archaeological co-director of the charity Waterloo Uncovered. [1] [2] He was the co-presenter of the BBC series Two Men in a Trench, co-founder of the Journal of Conflict Archaeology, and guest expert on Time Team .

Contents

Early life

Tony Pollard was born in Macclesfield in the north of England in 1965. He moved to Oban on the west coast of Scotland in the late 1970s. He studied archaeology at the University of Glasgow, and after graduating continued at the University taking a PhD on prehistoric hunter gatherers.

Career

After obtaining his PhD in 1995 he spent two years living in Brighton while working for the field archaeology unit of University College London. In 1997 he returned to work for Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD). Following a first visit to South Africa in 1999, he carried out a project investigating battlefields from the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. In 2000, he co-organised, with Phil Freeman of the University of Liverpool, the first international conference on battlefield archaeology. He then went on to make two series of Two Men in a Trench with Neil Oliver which introduced the public to the archaeology of British battlefields. He continues to appear in television documentary series and was a regular expert in the National Geographic series Nazi Megastructures.

The Centre for Battlefield Archaeology was founded in 2006 and Pollard appointed its director. [3] Since then the centre has gone on to offer the world's first post-graduate course in battlefield and conflict archaeology, while also publishing the Journal of Conflict Archaeology. The centre has carried out various projects which include the examination of Jacobite battlefields in Scotland, including Culloden, and investigating of British and Australian mass graves from World War I at Fromelles in France.

Since 2015 Pollard has served as an Archaeological co-director for the veteran support charity Waterloo Uncovered, conducting archaeology on the battlefield of Waterloo in Belgium alongside veterans and serving personnel. [4] In 2022, Pollard led the charity's Falklands War Mapping Project, a field mapping project which examined the surviving archaeology of the Falklands War on the Falklands Islands, incorporating the perspectives of two British veterans of the Battle of Mount Tumbledown. [5]

Writing

Pollard has written numerous papers and articles on archaeology (eg. as editor of Journal of Conflict Archaeology) and military history and edited several books on subjects as diverse as the early prehistory of Scotland and the archaeology of death. Along with Neil Oliver he wrote the two books accompanying the Two Men in a Trench programmes. [6] As Archaeological co-director of the charity Waterloo Uncovered, Pollard has written several papers and articles on archaeological work conducted on the site of the Battle of Waterloo. [7] [8] [9] Together with historians Bernard Wilkin and Robin Schäfer, he discovered that the bones of the soldiers killed at the Battle of Waterloo were dug out and sold to the sugar factories to be turned into spodium. [10]

In 2008, his first novel, The Minutes of the Lazarus Club, a thriller based on the life of the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was published by Michael Joseph. [11] It was republished in 2009 by Penguin under the title of The Secrets of the Lazarus Club. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Waterloo</span> 1815 battle of the Napoleonic Wars

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal von Blücher. The battle was known contemporarily as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France or La Belle Alliance in Prussia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Killiecrankie</span> Battle of the First Jacobite Rising

The Battle of Killiecrankie, also referred to as the Battle of Rinrory, took place on 27 July 1689 during the 1689 Scottish Jacobite rising. An outnumbered Jacobite force under Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel and John Graham, Viscount Dundee, defeated a government army commanded by General Hugh Mackay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phil Harding (archaeologist)</span> English archaeologist

Philip Harding DL FSA is a British field archaeologist. He became a familiar face on the Channel 4 television series Time Team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery</span> Museum in Glasgow, Scotland

The Hunterian is a complex of museums located in and operated by the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the oldest museum in Scotland. It covers the Hunterian Museum, the Hunterian Art Gallery, the Mackintosh House, the Zoology Museum and the Anatomy Museum, which are all located in various buildings on the main campus of the university in the west end of Glasgow.

Hornchurch Country Park is a 104.5-hectare park on the former site of Hornchurch Airfield, south of Hornchurch in the London Borough of Havering, east London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian National Vimy Memorial</span> Memorial in Pas-de-Calais, in France

The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the First World War killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The monument is the centrepiece of a 100-hectare (250-acre) preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault during the initial Battle of Vimy Ridge offensive of the Battle of Arras.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quaich</span> Two-handed drinking vessel from Scotland

A quaich, archaically quaigh or quoich, is a special kind of shallow two-handled drinking cup or bowl of a type traditional in Scotland. It derives from the Scottish Gaelic cuach, meaning a cup.

The Glasgow Fair is a holiday usually held during the second half of July in Glasgow, Scotland. 'The Fair' is the oldest of similar holidays and dates to the 12th century. The fair's earliest incarnation occurred in 1190, when Bishop Jocelin obtained permission from King William the Lion to hold the festivities.

<i>The Glasgow Guardian</i>

The Glasgow Guardian is the student newspaper of the University of Glasgow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prestonpans</span> Human settlement in Scotland

Prestonpans is a small mining town, situated approximately eight miles east of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the council area of East Lothian. The population as of 2020 is 10,460. It is near the site of the 1745 Battle of Prestonpans. Prestonpans is "Scotland's Mural Town", with many murals depicting local history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Ewart</span>

Cornet Charles Ewart was a Scottish soldier of the Royal North British Dragoons, famous for capturing the regimental eagle of the 45e Régiment de Ligne at the Battle of Waterloo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battlefield archaeology</span> Sub-discipline of Archaeology

Battlefield archaeology is a sub-discipline of archaeology which studies the material remains and topography of a battlefield to understand a conflict. Archaeological battlefields consist of skirmishes, sieges, camps, and training sites. The study of the relationships and contexts of the material by-products of war give an alternate account to the version recorded in a history book, poem, or witness account, which may be constructed though bias, or may present only a limited perspective of the events. Examination of these locations gives insight to what tactics were being used, weapon modifications, and battle formations. It is not considered distinct from Military archaeology or Recceology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neil Oliver</span> British television presenter

Neil Oliver is a Scottish television presenter and author. He has presented several documentary series on archaeology and history, including A History of Scotland, Vikings and Coast. He is also an author of popular history books and historical fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Snow</span> British historian and television presenter

Daniel Robert Snow is a British popular historian and television presenter. He is an ambassador of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS).

James Comrie, sometimes known as Jock Comrie, was a Scottish professional footballer who played in the Football League for Bradford City, Glossop and Lincoln City as a centre half.

The Vampire dugout, is a First World War underground shelter located near the Belgian village of Zonnebeke. It was created as a British brigade headquarters in early 1918 by the 171st Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers after the Third Battle of Ypres/Battle of Passchendaele.

Livens Large Gallery Flame Projectors were large experimental flamethrowers used by the British Army in World War I, named after their inventor, Royal Engineers officer William Howard Livens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Schadla-Hall</span> British archaeologist (1947–2023)

Richard Timothy Schadla-Hall, was a British archaeologist who specialised in the study of how the archaeological discipline interacts with the public. He was affiliated with the Institute of Archaeology at University College London in Bloomsbury, central London, where he worked as a Reader in Public Archaeology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Cowan (British Army officer)</span> British Army officer

Major-General James Michael Cowan is a former British Army officer. He is now CEO of The HALO Trust, a humanitarian organisation which works in post-conflict zones, and a trustee of Waterloo Uncovered, a charity conducting archaeology at the site of the Battle of Waterloo with veterans and serving personnel.

Two Men in a Trench is a British comedic historical documentary television series, produced by the BBC, that ran from 2002 to 2004.

References

  1. ↑ "Centre for Battlefield Archaeology Staff Profiles" . Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  2. ↑ "University of Glasgow - Schools - School of Humanities | Sgoil nan Daonnachdan - Our staff - Professor Tony J Pollard". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  3. ↑ "University of Glasgow – Research – Research units A‑Z – Centre for Battlefield Archaeology". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  4. ↑ "Battlefield archaeology helps veterans with physical and mental recovery". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  5. ↑ "Falklands battlefield survey helps former soldiers". BBC News. 8 April 2022. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  6. ↑ Pollard, Tony; Oliver, Neil (2003). Two Men in a Trench II: Uncovering the Secrets of British Battlefields. Michael Joseph. ISBN   978-0-7181-4594-1.
  7. ↑ Pollard, Tony (2020). "Waterloo: Combat and combat surgery on a Napoleonic battlefield". Current World Archaeology. 100: 30–35.
  8. ↑ Pollard, Tony (2015). "Waterloo: uncovering the archaeology of Europe's most famous battle". Current World Archaeology. 74: 28–34.
  9. ↑ Eve, Stuart; Pollard, Tony (1 December 2020). "From the Killing Ground: digital approaches to conflict archaeology–a case study from Waterloo". Digital War. 1 (1–3): 144–158. doi: 10.1057/s42984-020-00013-y . ISSN   2662-1983. S2CID   258706296.
  10. ↑ "Slag bij Waterloo: nieuwe ontdekking over stoffelijke resten van soldaten - Rijksarchief in België". www.arch.be. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  11. ↑ "Book review: The Minutes of the Lazarus Club by Tony Pollard". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
  12. ↑ Pollard, Tony (27 August 2009). The Secrets of the Lazarus Club. Penguin Adult. ISBN   9780141035895 . Retrieved 14 May 2017.
Stonehenge Closeup.jpg

This biographical article about a British archaeologist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.