Books

Two books are currently available from the author of this website:

Just out: The Frontiers of Truth, by Geoffrey A. Pocock

The Legion of Frontiersmen was formed in 1904 for fellowship and service to the State at any time of need. Its first official historian, Geoffrey A. Pocock, has written two books in connection with the Frontiersmen, One Hundred Years of the Legion of Frontiersmen, and his biography of the founder of the Legion, Outrider of Empire.

The Frontiers of Truth is an extensive new article that has never appeared on either the official Frontiersmen history website or the blog, detailing the (mis)adventures of some of the Legion’s most notorious early members. Their stories raise an important question about autobiographies, and why they should never be entirely trusted by historians without extensive research to establish corroborating evidence.

Also included in this volume are over thirty articles that first appeared on the official Frontiersmen history website or blog, fully revised and updated where appropriate, brought together for the first time here in a print volume. They cover diverse topics from the long history of the Legion of Frontiersmen, including: Frontiersmen and the Boy Scouts, Frontiersmen in their Own Words, Frontiersmen and the Sea, Friends in High Places, When a Government Minister Supported the Frontiersmen, On Parade in front of 139,000 People, The Mystery of the Union Flag, What Caused the Rift?, The Flying Frontiersmen, Defending Against Chemical Warfare and A Murder Mystery.

View/Buy “The Frontiers of Truth” on Lulu.

Also available: Outrider of Empire, by Geoffrey A. Pocock

A dreamer of dreams, an adventurer, and a man of many ideas, Roger Pocock was an inveterate, world-ranging traveller. But Canada was always the land he loved best after his native Britain. Although his service in the NWMP proved brief and undistinguished, the experience launched his career as a writer, and provided a major source of inspiration, both for his stories and in the creation of his greatest and longest-lived achievement, the Legion of Frontiersmen. Frontiersmen were men of action, rather than words, and few of them wrote of their experiences, so we are left with few formal written accounts. Roger did write about his own life, but his two autobiographies fail to tell the whole truth. This is scarcely surprising, for he made many mistakes in his life, including some serious ones, though any degree of culpability in the death of Sir Arthur Curtis fell well short of murder. Both Roger and the society that shaped him are long gone. But his life of adventure, with its many failures and a few outstanding successes, is well worth recording for what it reveals about both the man and his social milieu. For, truly, Roger Pocock lived the life that many an adventurous boy of the time might have desired.

For ordering information, please visit The University of Alberta Press.

Also by the same author, but now out of print:
One Hundred Years of the Legion of Frontiersmen, by Geoffrey A. Pocock

This is the extraordinary story of the Legion of Frontiersmen, a band of patriots and adventurers, whose exploits throughout Britain and the Commonwealth in the hour of need cover the last hundred years. Formed in 1904 by Roger Pocock to be ‘the eyes and ears of the Empire’, the Frontiersmen came close to becoming the official British intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence organisation. Their unwavering patriotism shines throughout their century of adventure: the Legion’s Manchester troop were the first British in action in 1914, fighting with the Belgian army before Britain declared war; frontiersmen served between 1915 and 1917 in East Africa, winning many decorations, including a V.C. Frontiersmen from Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the outposts of Empire rushed to serve the mother country and some 9,000 lost their lives in the First World War.

Between the wars, the Frontiersman’s distinctive uniform of Stetson hat, shoulder chains and riding breeches was a familiar sight on civic occasions, while in the Second World War the Legion saw action in all the Services.

The Legion attracted many well-known figures. Prince Louis of Battenberg was a founder-member, while his grand-daughter, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma continues the family link as its Patron. Geoffrey Pocock has brilliantly captured the spirit of this uniquely British organisation. His account, benefiting from much previously unpublished material, describes their successes and failures, their outstanding achievements and their errors of judgement. This book, with contributions from the Countess Mountbatten of Burma and Sir Patrick Moore, is the first to recount the history of this eccentric group of adventurers, fighters and, above all, patriots.