Major Alfred Rolph Pope, M.A., T.D., J.P.

Alfred Rolph Pope was the eldest son of Alfred Pope.  He was born in South Walk House, Dorchester, on 3rd August 1871.  He was educated at Charterhouse School near Godalming, then Cambridge University to study the Natural Sciences.  Whilst there he also took part in college and university rifle shooting, lawn tennis and rowing.

On leaving Cambridge he studied the science of brewing. and became a director of Eldridge, Pope and Co. Ltd in 1897.

Like his father, he was a keen `citizen soldier'.  At the age of fifteen he joined the Charterhouse Cadet Corps, and three years later was promoted to corporal.  He became a crack rifle shot, winning competitions across the south of England.  On moving to Cambridge he joined the 4th (Cambridge University) Volunteer Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment, being commissioned as a Second Lieutentant, rising to Captain by 1892.

After leaving university he transferred to the 1st Volunteer Battalion the Dorsetshire Regiment, being appointed a Major in 1908. He was granted the Volunteer Long Service Medal but in 1912, due to ill-health, he was transferred to the Territorial Force Reserve.

However on the outbreak of war on 4th August 1914 he was recalled to the colours and appointed to command the Territoral Force Association of the 4th Dorsets.  He was responsible for the moblisation and recruitment of the 4th Dorset Battalion. He managed to recruit two battalions which were sent to India.

As well as his military work, Alfred jr. also had a municipal government career being a town councillor in Dorchester from 1900 onwards and Mayor in 1907.  Just as when his father was Mayor twenty-one years previously, the Bath and West Country Show came to Dorchester. In 1915 he was appointed an Alderman of the town.

Politically he was, like his father, a staunch Conservative and was Vice-President of the Dorchester and Fordington Conservative and Unionist and Working Men's Club.

He had a taste for foreign travel, visiting Canada and the USA in 1896.  He took many holidays in Switzerland and also visited Egypt in the days when extensive foreign travel was still a minority interest.

Alfred jr, married Kate Rendall in August 1900.  Kate was the daughter of the late William Rendall of Maiden Newton, Surgeon-Captain in the Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry.  They had four children recorded in the war memorial book; Alfred Cecil Rolph, Kathering Mary, Philip William Rolph and Conway Rolph.

Therefore the eldest of Alfred Pope's sons, although slightly too old for front line service as a non-regular as a 43 year old at the outbreak of war, did his bit as a leading citizen to raise men for the Dorset Regiment.