Sir Henry Mendelssohn Hake C.B.E. (1892-1951) was born in London in 1892 and was the son of Henry Wilson Hake PhD. Hake was educated at Westminster and at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1914 he became an assistant in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. From 1915 -1919 he served in the army and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In 1920 he married Patricia Robertson, daughter of Rev. James Robertson. After the First World War he returned to the British Museum, where he remained until 1927, when he was appointed Director of the National Portrait Gallery, a post he held until his death in on 4th April 1951, aged 59.
At the National Portrait Gallery he was responsible for rearranging the pictures in historical order, and made many valuable acquisitions. During the Second World War when the Gallery's portraits had to be moved to Mentmore for safekeeping he and his wife lived for a time in the stables near the store. During the later part of the war he often slept in the Gallery cellars.
Hake published to two volumes of the 'Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits' in the British Museum, continuing and completing the work begun by Freeman O'Donoghue, and various articles for the 'Print Collectors' Quarterly', and for the publications of the Walpole Society. Hake also worked on the National Portrait Gallery catalogues, though did not live to see the four volume catalogue raisonne completed.
