Alfred W. (Alfred William) Pollard

Born in London in 1859, Alfred William Pollard studied at King's College School and then at St John's College, Oxford. He joined the British Museum in 1883 and built a long career there, eventually serving as Keeper of Printed Books from 1919 to 1924.

Pollard is best remembered as a bibliographer and scholar of English literature. He worked on Chaucer, wrote extensively about early printing and rare books, and is widely credited with bringing greater scholarly rigor to Shakespearean textual study.

He was honored with a CB and elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Pollard died in 1944, leaving behind a body of work that helped shape modern bibliography and the study of early English texts.