Lance Corporal Walter Pollock
The background of this North Irish Horseman is not known for certain, other than that he was from Belfast. He may have been the Walter Pollock born on 31 July 1895 at 4 Queen Victoria Terrace, the last of thirteen children of master-mariner William Pollock and his wife Sarah (née Wilson). By the time of the 1911 Census he was living at 2 Martinez Avenue, Belfast, with his widowed father and six of his siblings, and working as an office-boy.
Pollock enlisted in the North Irish Horse on 29 or 30 July 1916 (No.2225). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve camp before embarking for France in late 1916 or the first half of 1917, where he was posted to one of the squadrons of the 1st or 2nd North Irish Horse Regiments.
In August-September 1917 the 2nd NIH Regiment was disbanded and its men, together with some surplus to the needs of the 1st NIH Regiment, were transferred to the Royal Irish Fusiliers, an infantry regiment. Most, including Pollock, were transferred on 20 September and posted to the 9th (Service) Battalion – renamed the 9th (North Irish Horse) Battalion – joining it in the field at Ruyaulcourt five days later. Pollock was issued regimental number 41440.
He probably saw action with the battalion at the Battle of Cambrai in November and December 1917.
The War Office Daily Casualty List reported three times during 1918 that Pollock had been wounded. The first of these probably occurred in the fighting around Wulverghem and Mount Kemmel on the Ypres front in April that year; the second early in the Advance to Victory offensive, probably on 4 September in the attack near Wulverghem; and the last perhaps at Hill 41 near Dadizeele in October.
Pollock was discharged on 29 November 1919, probably under paragraph 392 (xvi) of King's Regulations (being no longer physically fit for war service).
Assuming that he was the Walter Pollock born on 31 July 1895, after the war he returned to Belfast and was employed as a civil servant. On 3 September 1932 he married Kathleen Ezerine Rea in the Connsbrook Avenue Congregational Church. By 1959 he was living with Kathleen at 27 Summerhill Park, Belfast. He died on 14 July that year in the Royal Victoria Hospital and was buried in the Dundonald Cemetery.