 His proposers were Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Sir Thomas Henry Holland, James Pickering Kendall and Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker.In the Second World War he was an Honorary Colonel in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and also an Honorary Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force.Sir Donald Pollock was Rector of the University of Edinburgh from 1939 to 1945 and gifted the site which now holds the student accommodation known as Pollock Halls of Residence.