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Justin Pollard

Justin David Pollard (born 30 January 1968)[1] is a British historian, television producer, writer and entrepreneur. He is best known for his work on such films as Elizabeth and Pirates of the Caribbean[2] and TV series including Vikings and The Tudors. He is also a co-founder (with John Mitchinson and Dan Kieran) of the publishing company Unbound.[3][4][5][6]

Justin Pollard
FRHistS FRGS
Justin Pollard in 2022
Born
Justin David Pollard

(1968-01-30) 30 January 1968 (age 56)
Hertfordshire, England
EducationSt Albans School
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (MA)
Occupation(s)Author, Broadcaster, popular historian
Spouse
Stephanie Pollard
​
(m. 2000)​
Children2
Parents
  • David Pollard (father)
  • Valerie Medland (mother)
Websitewww.visualartefact.com

Biography

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Pollard is a popular historian, historical consultant and screenwriter working in the field of feature films, television and print. He was born in Hertfordshire and was educated at St Albans School and Downing College, Cambridge, where he graduated with honours in archaeology and anthropology.

After college he worked for a year as an archaeologist at the Museum of London on the excavation of Thomas Becket’s old monastery of Merton Priory. During that time he also developed an educational programme for schools visiting the Surrey Heath Archaeological and Heritage Trust in Surrey for which the Trust was awarded the Graham Webster Laurels at the British Archaeology Awards for their contribution to education in archaeology.

Leaving the Museum of London in 1990, Pollard moved into documentary production initially as a researcher, and then a writer and producer. His television credits include development and scripting for the BBC's QI,[7] Channel 4's Time Team,[8] including writing the Christmas special Time Team's History of Britain, script editing Bob Geldof's Geldof in Africa, and developing Terry Jones' Barbarians.[9] He has also written the 3x1 hour history of the Egyptian New Kingdom for the BBC and Lion Television, Egypt’s Golden Empire, which was nominated for an Emmy Award. As well as these he has written and produced documentaries on everything from cannibalism amongst the Dongria Kondh in India to the career of Vlad the Impaler, for presenters including Terry Jones, Bettany Hughes, Alexei Sayle, Tony Robinson and Bob Geldof, and broadcasters including BBC, ITV, Channel 4, National Geographic Channel, PBS, A&E, Discovery Channel, Canal+, ZDF, S4C, ITN and others.

Apart from producing documentaries, Pollard runs a company that provides historical and script consultancy for historical feature films and television dramas. He has a long association with Indian director Shekhar Kapur and was historical consultant on his features Elizabeth, The Four Feathers, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age coaching cast (including Cate Blanchett, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Richard Attenborough, Fanny Ardant, Vincent Cassel, John Gielgud and Heath Ledger) and crew in the historical background to the stories. He has also worked closely in developing other history-based features for directors, including Gillies MacKinnon, Sam Mendes, Jan de Bont and Neil Jordan. He was the historical consultant on Joe Wright's film, Atonement and has recently worked on two movies with Johnny Depp - Alice in Wonderland (2010 film) directed by Tim Burton, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides directed by Rob Marshall and Les Misérables directed by Tom Hooper.

In television he is the historical consultant for the MGM Television/History Channel drama Vikings[10] and has recently worked on all four series of the Showtime hit The Tudors starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Camelot (TV series) starring Joseph Fiennes for Starz (TV network).

Pollard is a regular columnist for History Today,[11] Engineering & Technology[12] and BBC History Magazine[13] and a contributor to the QI books and Annuals including The Book of General Ignorance. His latest book World of the Vikings was released in November 2015.

Pollard is also one of the founders of the crowdsourcing publisher Unbound and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Geographical Society

Feature films

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Television series

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Bibliography

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  • Pollard, Justin (2003). Seven ages of Britain.
  • Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England (Hardcover), 2005. ISBN 0-7195-6665-7
  • The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern World (Hardcover), with Howard Reid 2006. ISBN 0-670-03797-4
  • The Interesting Bits: The History You Might Have Missed (Hardcover), 2007. ISBN 0-7195-2420-2
  • The Story of Archaeology (Hardcover), 2007. ISBN 1-84724-183-2
  • Charge! The Interesting Bits of Military History (Hardcover), 2008. ISBN 0-7195-2304-4
  • Secret Britain - The Hidden Bits of Our History, October 2009. ISBN 978-1-84854-198-6
  • Wonders of the Ancient World (Hardcover), 2009. ISBN 978-1-84724-890-9
  • Boffinology - The Real Stories Behind Our Greatest Scientific Discoveries, October 2010. ISBN 978-1-84854-200-6
  • Buses, Bankers & the Beer of Revenge: An Eccentric Engineer Collection, November 2012. ISBN 978-1-84919-581-2
  • World of the Vikings, November 2015. ISBN 978-1-45214-545-7
  • Pollard, Justin & Stephanie Pollard (September 2017). "Pompey the Great, born 29 September 106 BC". Months Past. History Today. 67 (9): 22–23.

Personal life

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Pollard married BAFTA nominated TV researcher and producer Stephanie Farr on 18th November 2000. They have two children. Stephanie was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer in 2014 and died in 2023.

References

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  1. ^ "Justin Pollard - IMDb". IMDb.
  2. ^ "Justin Pollard - IMDb". IMDb.
  3. ^ "21st-century publishing builds on a healthy radical tradition". TheGuardian.com. 18 December 2011.
  4. ^ "Exclusive Interview with Justin Pollard founder of Unbound".
  5. ^ Unbound website.
  6. ^ "Crowdfunded Book Up For Biggest Literary Prize", Sky News, 24 July 2014.
  7. ^ Spencer, Charles (3 November 2017). "Charles Spencer: There's just no beating books when it comes to Christmas gifts". iNews. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  8. ^ "Justin Pollard - Quercus". Archived from the original on 12 January 2018.
  9. ^ "Justin Pollard | United Agents".
  10. ^ "The Real Ragnar Lothbrok". Biography. 1 October 2017. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  11. ^ "Justin Pollard | History Today".
  12. ^ Pollard, J. (2013). "The Eccentric Engineer". Engineering & Technology. 8 (12): 96. doi:10.1049/et.2013.1233.
  13. ^ "History Extra Home".
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