A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Pollard, John
POLLARD. (Lieut., 1806. f-p., 27; h-p., 23.)
John Pollard was born 27 July, 1787.
This officer entered the Navy, 1 Nov. 1797, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Havick 16, Capt. Philip Bartholomew; in which sloop, after having chased a large convoy and three armed vessels under the batteries of St. Maloes, and been there for some time warmly engaged with the enemy, he was wrecked, 9 Nov. 1800, in St. Aubin’s Bay, Jersey. He was then received as a Supernumerary on board the Cambridge 74, Capt. Thos. Wolley; and next, in Sept. 1801, on board the Hercule 74, Capt. Wm. Luke, with whom he cruized in the Channel until paid off in April, 1802. Joining in succession, in April, 1803, the Culloden 74 and Canopus 80, both commanded by Capt. John Conn, he sailed in the latter ship with the flag of Rear-Admiral Geo. Campbell for the Mediterranean, where, in March, 1805, he removed on promotion to the Victory 100, bearing the flag of Lord Nelson. On the return of the fleet from its pursuit of the combined squadrons to the West Indies, Mr. Pollard was afforded an opportunity of participating, as Signal-Midshipman, in the action off Cape Trafalgar. On that occasion, while standing on the poop, he was struck by a splinter on the right arm, and chanced to be the first officer who was there touched. A musket-ball next passed through the shell of his spy-glass, about a foot above the hand that held it; and a second one shattered the watch in his pocket. Some time after the Victory had been in action with the French 74-gun ship Redoutable, the officers and men around him beginning to fall fast, the attention of Mr. Pollard was arrested by a number of soldiers whom he perceived crouching in the tops of the Redoutable, and directing a destructive fire on the poop and quarter-deck of the Victory. He immediately seized a musket, and, being supplied by the Signal-Quartermaster, King, with ball-cartridges from two barrels kept on the after-part of the poop for the use of the marines (who at the time were elsewhere engaged), continued firing at the soldiers every time they rose breast-high in the tops, until not one was to be seen. In the act of handing the last parcel of ball-cartridges, the Quartermaster was shot through the forehead, and fell lifeless on the spot. When the action terminated Mr. Pollard was the only officer left alive of those who had been originally stationed on the poop; and thus, in the manner we have described, originated the belief that it was he who had shot the man who killed Lord Nelson. On leaving the Victory in Nov. 1805, he joined, first the Queen 98, and then the Dreadnought of similar force, and Hibernia 110, bearing the respective flags of Lords Collingwood, Northesk, and St. Vincent. He was made Lieutenant, 14 Nov. 1806, into the Décade 36, Capt. John Stuart, in the Channel; and was subsequently appointed – 25 Dec. 1807, to the Brunswick 74, Capt. Thos. Graves, stationed in the Baltic, where, prior to the embarkation from Nyeborg of the Spanish troops under the Marquis de la Romana, he served in the boats at the attack and capture of the Danish brig Fama of 18, and her consort the Salorman cutter (which he was among the first to board) of 12 guns – 14 June 1810, after 16 months of half-pay, to the North Star 20, Capt. Thos. Coe, with whom he cruized in the Channel until May, 1811 – 4 Jan. 1812, to the Mercurius sloop, Capt. Thos. Renwick, employed in the North Sea and Baltic – 9 May, 1814 (having left the Mercurius in the preceding Nov.), to the Woodlark 10, Capt. Wm. Cutfield, on the north coast of Spain, whence he returned sick in the following Sept. – and 19 April, 1828, for three years, to the Ordinary at Chatham. He has been in charge, since 2 Aug. 1836, of a station in the Coast Guard.
Lieut. Pollard married, in Aug. 1822, Miss Matilda Trevethan, a lady by whom he has issue six children.