John Hungerford Pollen was born in London on 19 November 1820. Born into an aristocratic English family, he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. Inspired by the evangelical Oxford Movement, in 1845 he was ordained Anglican priest and allocated a parish in Leeds. There, he wrote the most touching and tragic of all the records of struggle in parish work for tractarian principles (A Narrative of Five Years at St Saviour’s, Leeds, 1851). He returned to Oxford and painted the ceiling of St Peter-le-Bailey Church. In 1850 he designed and painted the ceiling of Merton College Chapel and converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1852. In consequence, he was removed from his Fellowship of Merton. He then, as a Romanist layman, turned his formidable intellectual powers and gifts to the service of mother church. The famous Catholic convert Dr John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman 1801-90) became the first Rector of the Catholic University in Dublin in 1851, on the invitation of the Archbishop of Dublin. Newman decided to build a university church at his own expense. He purchased No. 87 St Stephen’s Green for that purpose in 1855 and he knew just the man to decorate it. Known to each other from Oxford, Newman commissioned Pollen to decorate it in the style of a basilica, with Irish marbles and copies of standard pictures. Pollen selected a richly ornamented Byzantine Revival style and implemented it in the years 1855-57. At Newman’s wish, he was also appointed Professor of Fine Arts. Newman’s tendency to select English professors and officials to staff the university was not always appreciated and indicated a certain lack of sensitivity to Irish national aspirations. Returning to England in 1857, Pollen settled at Hampstead, London. In Ireland, Pollen had encountered Benjamin Woodward, architect of the Oxford Union Society, and through him, became involved with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Val Prinsep, and Spencer Stanhope in painting the ill-fated Arthurian wall frescoes (1857) in the Debating Hall (now the Old Library) that are now scarcely recognisable. Pollen worked for the Catholic newspaper The Tablet, and through John Everett Millais, expanded his contacts with the Pre-Raphaelite circle. He also carried out work at the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, popularly known as Brompton Oratory, in London. In December 1863 Pollen was appointed Assistant Keeper of the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). He was also editor of its science and art department. With Henry Cole, he compiled a Universal Catalogue of Books on Art. That mammoth multi-volume project, commenced publication in 1870, its aim being to furnish a complete bibliographical record of art books in libraries of the West. Pollen devoted himself to art, wrote some valuable lectures, was the friend of Morris and Rossetti, Swinburne and Patmore, and became in artistic literature, what his friend Baron von Hügel said he was in life, ‘the perfect type of l’homme du monde.’ His numerous design commissions included stained glass, tapestry, carpets (including a design for Wilton, 1877) and furniture. He was committed to the crafts revival movement, and in 1887 co-founded, with Walter Crane, the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. As editor of the Department of Art and Industry of the South Kensington Museum in the period 1863 to 1876, he published several pioneering catalogues. Many of his drawings and watercolours are in the collection of the RIBA in London. Many of his domestic commissions stemmed from his connections with the Catholic aristocracy. He also decorated ceilings with patterns of dense Celtic interlace at Blickling Hall, Aylsham, Norfolk for Lord Lothian. The work was only recently rediscovered, following water damage caused by burst pipes. Pollen’s work had been covered up in the 1930s. The 11th Lord Lothian was redecorating the house in a style in vogue at the time, which was more sympathetic with the house’s Georgian history. In 1855 Pollen married Maria Margaret La Primaudaye. As Maria Pollen, she was known as author of the book Seven Centuries of Lace. Of their ten children, John Hungerford Pollen, Jesuit and writer, was the third child and the controversial inventor Arthur Hungerford Pollen was their sixth son. John Hungerford Pollen died in London on 2 December 1902.