Paddington' Pollaky, Private Detective

by Bryan Kesselman

  Your obedient servant.

  RITTER VON POLLAKY, Criminal-Rath

  Pollaky’s suggestions were not met with universal approval. An editorial in the Jewish Chronicle of 21 July 1911 stated that, ‘It need hardly be pointed out that the greatest difficulties would be experienced by Russian Jews in carrying out Ritter von Pollaky’s suggestion.’

  The Times – Tuesday, 12 May 1914

  TOURING CRIMINALS

  TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

  Sir, – Whoever the writer of the article in The Times of May 9 may be, he certainly shows himself a most tactful master of the craft; and I should say that whatever he does not know on the subject of the proposed ‘International Police Bureau and Police Congresses’ is indeed not worth knowing.

  I fully appreciate his recommendation that ‘if the … [Pollaky’s ellipsis] international criminal is to be kept in hand it will be by a freer interchange of information between the individual forces, than by the expensive and ineffective method of establishing an International Bureau.’

  I remain, your obedient servant,

  RITTER VON POLLAKY, formerly the London Correspondent of the official Internationales Criminal-Polizeiblatt.

  After this last letter, Pollaky’s name is rarely seen in The Times. On 4 June, his name appears in a list of charitable donations, where he is shown to have contributed 10s 6d each to staff of the South Shields Education Office and this seems to be the last time his name would appear there until his obituary in 1918.

  In 1921 Major Fitzroy Gardner, OBE (1855–1931) included in a volume of memoirs entitled Days and Ways of an Old Bohemian (pages 235–36) the following account of his acquaintance with Pollaky:

  My first acquaintance with detective work was, when I was twenty-four, under the tuition of the then best-known detective in the world – Ignatius Pollaky, a Pole, who acted in England for several foreign governments, and was often consulted by Scotland Yard. He spoke and wrote six languages fluently and knew intimately some of the most dangerous criminals of four countries. He had an office on Paddington Green; hence ‘Pollaky of Paddington Green’, a music-hall skit of the old popular ditty, ‘Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green’. I happened to make his acquaintance in connection with the abduction (by a man holding an important Government position) of one of my mother’s servants, and, finding that I could speak German fluently and some French, he made use of me in a difficult matter in which foreigners were concerned. I gave my services enthusiastically, and have never forgotten the lessons which Pollaky taught me in our conversations. Thirty years later I was anxious to obtain certain information about dangerous Russian and Polish refugees in this country, and I paid a visit to Pollaky, who had retired from business and was living at Brighton. I had no idea that he had recently developed a form of insanity. He was obsessed with the idea that some of the men whose arrest he had effected in years gone by were trying to murder him; moreover, he had lost his memory, and not only did he not recognise me or my name, but, when he came to the door in answer to the bell, he threatened me with a revolver, and I returned to London without the desired information. Pollaky died about three years ago.

  Gardner was wrong about Pollaky’s nationality. The story about the abduction case is interesting, and typical of the kind of work Pollaky undertook, though why Gardner’s help was needed for his language skills is a mystery since Pollaky spoke both those languages fluently himself. Of even more interest, is the description of his behaviour in his old age. Gardner was 24 in 1879. If his ‘thirty years later’ is correct, then this meeting happened in 1909 (when Pollaky was 81). Was his nervous behaviour and his need to protect himself with a revolver justified? Did he have, or had he had, enemies who were really to be feared? Might it have been the Socialists whom he felt might be dangerous? If, as is possible, Gardner was approximate as to the years, then it is possible that the interview with Pollaky was as late as 1911, and that the Russian and Polish refugees to whom he refers have some connection with the Siege of Sidney Street. We already know that Pollaky was quite exercised about this, and this may also explain his behaviour with the revolver.

  In another memoir, More Reminiscences of an Old Bohemian (page 191), Gardner discusses the original case in more detail:

  A lady relative of mine had a remarkably pretty nurse for her baby, daughter of a highly respectable tradesman. One night the girl disappeared from the house, taking all her belongings with her, and my services were enlisted to trace her. At that time there were sensational stories in the newspapers about men decoying good-looking servant girls in London and taking them to houses of ill-fame on the Continent. With the aid of Ignatius Pollaky, the then famous international detective – that started my acquaintance with him – I traced her, not to any foreign country, but to a boarding-house near Westbourne Grove, where she was living with a man occupying a high position in the Civil Service. She was sent back to her people, and neither my relative or I ever heard of her again until some fifteen years later, when I discovered her, as wife of a man of considerable means and mixing in quite good society; incidentally she was hostess at a big function at which the late King, when Prince of Wales, was present.

  As for the rest of the family, Rose Katherine Pollaky married in 1890 Luer John Charles Varrelmann, a clerk in the War Office. The sisters were still close. Minna Mary Ann, the oldest surviving sibling was certainly staying with her sister Rose and Luer on the night of the 1891 census. Minna remained unmarried. Rose died in 1924; Varrelmann remarried in 1932 to Evelyn Paskins. Rose and Luer had two children: Rose Margaretha Varrelmann born 1891, and Luer Frederick Cyril Varrelmann, born 1893. The Varrelmann family lived in Croydon, Surrey.

  Mabel Mary Pollaky also married in 1890. She became Mrs Andrew Charles Chapman. Chapman was a grocer. A year later, they were living in Petersfield, Hampshire where they had two children, John, born 1896, and Lilian, born 1897. By 1901, they were living in Islington, London.

  No expense had been spared on the education of Ignatius and Mary Ann’s son Francis. He attended University College School, London from 1877 to 1880. At that time the school was within the premises of University College itself. After leaving school, Francis Hughes James Pollaky worked in Grantham as an apprentice to a chemist and druggist and eventually married Helena Johanna Spiers. They had a daughter Elizabeth Mary Ann, born October 1889 in England. At some point in the 1890s Francis Hughes James Pollaky, his wife, daughter and his sister Minna travelled to South Africa where his son Francis Cecil Pollaky was probably born. They may not have travelled together, as Elizabeth Mary Ann was certainly baptised in London in 1899. Both Minna and Francis Hughes James Pollaky died in 1899 in South Africa. Francis died of phthisis asthenia (tuberculosis) at Old Somerset Hospital, CapeTown. He had been working as a Law Agent in Darling District, Malmesbury, Cape Colony. Malmesbury is about 40 miles north of Cape Town.

  His death was announced in The Times:

  POLLAKY – On September 7 [1899], at midnight, at Cape Town, after much suffering, Francis Hughes James Pollaky, the dearly-loved and only surviving son of Ignatius Paul and Mary Ann Pollaky, in his 34th year.

  His sister Minna Mary Ann Pollaky died of influenza and exhaustion on 3 October 1899 and is buried in Willowmore, South Africa some 330 miles east of Cape Town, where she had been working as a teacher. She never married. The Varrelmanns named their house ‘Willowmore’.

  Pollaky’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Mary Ann Pollaky, married and divorced twice in South Africa. Pollaky’s grandson, Francis Cecil Pollaky, born about 1893, became a doctor of medicine who qualified for practice in Dublin in 1937 as a Licentiate of Apothecaries Hall (LAH) and had a practice in London. He married cellist Kathleen Andrews in 1922; he is listed on the marriage register as ‘Pollaky or Hughes’. On 4 May 1939, he changed his surname from Pollaky to Hamilton by deed poll. In 1949 he gave up his practice, as he was frustrated by all the form-filling he had to do when he thought he should be attending to his patients, and became a grocer in the vi
llage of Crawley Down, Sussex.

  It is to be hoped that Ignatius and Mary Ann felt some comfort from the existence of grandchildren, some of who must have visited them in their late retirement, but the news of the deaths of Francis and Minna in 1899 must surely have left them devastated.

  14

  Naturalisation

  As we move further into the twentieth century, the great events that were taking place must necessarily colour our view of life in England, even the life of a long-retired Hungarian private investigator, who on occasion exhibited confused behaviour. The year 1914 was notable for the start of World War One, and for the appalling life in the trenches for those serving in the armies of the nations involved. Pollaky was no longer the quick-minded, ever-ready-to-jump-at-a-chance detective of his youth and middle years. He was comfortably placed and had been retired from business for over thirty years.

  But there was one thing that had still evaded him. One thing that he always harked back to, that plagued his mind and perhaps gave him sleepless nights when he thought of it – his treatment at the hands of the authorities over fifty years earlier.

  And so, in 1914, he applied once more to become a British citizen. He was now 86 years old.

  In his application he stressed that he had not been an Austro-Hungarian subject since 1879 as in that year a law was passed by both Houses of Parliament of the Dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy stating that any Austro-Hungarian subject who remained out of his country for 10 years would lose his nationality:

  Having been absent for more than 63 years I am now absolutely denationalized by the above law – showing besides an unbroken domicile of sixty three years in England; sworn in a Special Constable serving during the Hyde Park Riots!

  This time, his application received kinder consideration. The Chief Constable, Sir C. Matthews himself, hoped that the application would be given ‘special treatment’ as Pollaky was well known to him as an ex-secret inquiry agent.

  Detective Inspector Forward wrote in his reference from the Police Station, Town Hall, Brighton on 27 August 1914:

  I beg to report that the Memorialist, Ignatius Paul Pollaky, of 33 Stanford Avenue, Brighton, states he was born at Pressburg (Pozsony), Hungary, on the 19th February 1828. His father, Joseph Pollaky, a private correspondent and musician, and his mother, Minna Pollaky, were both Hungarian subjects.

  The Memorialist came to England in 1851, and for about 25 years resided in his own freehold house at 13 Paddington Green, W., during which time he was in the employ of Lloyd’s Salvage Association.

  He came to Brighton about 27 years ago, and has since resided in his own freehold house at 33 Stanford Avenue. Since he has been in Brighton he has been of independent means.

  On the 2nd June 1861 he was married to Mary Ann Hughes,whose parents (now deceased) were British subjects. He now has two married daughters, aged 47 and 45 years respectively, whose husbands are British subjects, and are residing in England.

  The Memorialist can read, write, and understand the English language perfectly. The signatures on the attached declarations are in his own handwriting.

  He states his reasons for applying for a Certificate of Naturalization are:– that he has resided in England for 63 years, his wife is a British subject, his two daughters have married British subjects, and the whole of his money and interests are in this Country. He therefore has no desire to leave it, and wishes to enjoy the rights and privileges of a natural born British subject.

  The Memorialist has been known to me personally for the past 20 years, and I have always known him to be a respectable citizen.

  And so, on 17 September 1914, some fifty-two years after his original application, Ignatius Paul Pollaky became a British Citizen.

  At the age of 87, on 14 May 1915, his name was included in The Times in a list of those naturalised British subjects of German or Austrian birth who expressed their condemnation of ‘German military methods’ while expressing their loyalty to Britain. This list was in response to a letter there from dramatist Arthur Wing Pinero which had appeared on 11 May following the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat four days earlier asking for such a declaration to be made. Did Pollaky, therefore, consider himself to be Hungarian or Austrian by birth? It matters not, because first and foremost he was British.

  One item in Detective Inspector Forward’s reference is new information missing from reports that included Pollaky’s name. The Lloyd’s Salvage Association had been in existence since at least 1856, in the 1860s a number of attempted frauds took place against member companies, the earliest in 1862. In one of them a ship with a cargo of salt with a low value had been scuttled to secure a £14,600 of insurance money, the insurers having been told that the cargo consisted of valuable armaments.

  George Lewis Jr conducted the prosecution. He was also also Pollaky’s solicitor, and surely it is not too far a leap to suppose that it was Pollaky himself who had carried out the investigation on behalf of the Lloyds Salvage Association. The incident took place on 15 June 1866. The front page of The Times of 31 October that year carried an advertisement for information as to the whereabouts of one Thomas Berwick, shipowner. Entitled, ‘ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD’, the advertisement included the following description of the wanted man:

  About 42 years of age, about 5ft. 8 high, fair smooth hair, without moustache or beard, and with thin whiskers; ruddy complexion, bloodshot eyes, and hard features; dresses in coloured clothes. Information to be furnished to Lloyd’s Salvage Association; Messrs. Lewis and Lewis 10 Ely-place, Holborn, solicitors; and Inspector Hamilton, 26 Old Jewry, London.

  Several men were caught and tried for this fraud. All those concerned in the business were sentenced to penal servitude for a long term – Berwick and his accomplice Lionel Holdsworth for twenty years each.

  On 13 July1934 an article appeared in the Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser of Queensland, Australia. Entitled ‘Pollaky – Detective of Genius. Sherlock Holmes in Real Life’, it was written by Vaughan Drydon and had appeared earlier in the Melbourne Argus.

  Drydon makes the same error as Fitzroy Gardner had in 1921 (see Chapter 13) in describing Pollaky as Polish, but finds other things to say about him which, though unsubstantiated by this author’s research, may be true, and worth noting here for interest’s sake:

  He was a man of no ordinary education, since he spoke six languages fluently. Those who knew him were amazed at the way in which he handled a case. His sagacity seemed superhuman. [...] He seemed to solve mysteries by a kind of instinct.

  Drydon writes that the chiefs of Scotland Yard were, ‘glad to consult this mysterious foreigner with the gift of tongues and the knowledge of the underworld’. As we have seen, this was not really true, though they seem to have made use of him when they felt there was no alternative. In Drydon’s essay, we read that Pollaky grew rich, and saved ‘every penny’ so that he could retire:

  The risks in his trade were great, and he went in fear of his life. His enemies in the underworld were many and desperate. Pollaky always went armed, and frequently he changed his bedroom. A revolver lay on his desk while clients consulted him. For years he knew neither peace of mind by day nor unbroken sleep at night.

  A picture of a man can be built thus in our minds, but Drydon does not give his sources for these statements. They seem to be blown up from earlier interviews so as to give them extra colour. Pollaky we know kept a gun, but he himself wrote that he had never used it.

  The essay continues with a story about Pollaky solving a disappearance of some jewels. A well-known lady (unnamed by Drydon) needed money to pay her gambling debts, and decided to pawn her tiara, after having it first copied so that her husband would not realise what she had done. The jeweller she took it to told her that the tiara was made of paste. Pollaky, on being given the case discovered that there had been no theft, but that the woman’s husband had needed money, and with the same idea as his wife, had the tiara copied and sold the original.

  Drydon fi
nishes with a paragraph about Pollaky’s skill at foiling blackmailers:

  Pollaky had a diabolical skill in digging up their little secrets and inducing them to leave their prey alone. If all people who are blackmailed would seek advice this despicable form of crime would soon be all but stamped out.

  Just as there are no details of his youth, there are no descriptions of his old age. Did he ever think of his childhood? Did it ever fill his dreams? His family and the friends of those days – did he think of them? The old times could never come back. He and Mary Ann would sit together in the evening: silent – nothing left to say to each other. He was no longer the man of action, quick-minded, able to find the solution to any problem in the blinking of an eye. Now, even his beloved chess was no comfort, and he was filled with foreboding.

  Visits from grandchildren might distract him from the sickness of nostalgia. Mary Ann, ever practical, understood him better than any. Always cheerful when he was there to see her: never letting her despair show.

  He looked back at his life trying to come to an understanding. ‘This is who I am – this is who I was.’

  And you who have read this book, do you know this man, with his failings as well as his strengths? Have you come now to feel the same affection for him as I?