Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pollard, Robert
POLLARD, ROBERT (1755–1838), designer and engraver, born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1755, was articled to a silversmith there, and subsequently became a pupil of Richard Wilson, R.A. For a time he practised as a landscape and marine painter, but about 1782 he established himself in Spa Fields, London, as an engraver and printseller, and during the next ten years produced a large number of plates, executed in a peculiar mixed style, composed of line, etching, and aquatint, some of them from his own designs, and others after popular artists of his time. To the former category belong ‘Lieutenant Moody rescuing a Prisoner,’ 1785, ‘Adventure of Lady Harriet Ackland,’ 1784, ‘Edwin and Angelina,’ 1785, ‘The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green,’ and eight plates of shipping. The latter class includes ‘Wreck of the Grosvenor East Indiaman’ 1784, ‘Wreck of the Halsewell East Indiaman,’ 1786, ‘Margaret Nicholson's attempt to murder George III,’ 1786, and two plates illustrating the restoration of a young man to life by Doctors Lettsom and Hawes, 1787, all after R. Smirke, R.A.; ‘Trial of Warren Hastings,’ 1789, ‘Thanksgiving Day in St. Paul's,’ 1789, and views of Bloomsbury, Hanover, Grosvenor, and Queen squares, London, all after E. Dayes; ‘Wreck of the Centaur’ and ‘Preservation of Captain Inglefield after the Wreck’ (a pair), after R. Dodd, 1783; ‘Leonora,’ after J. R. Smith, 1786; and others after Cosway, Gilpin, Stothard, Wheatley, &c. Many of these plates were finished in aquatint by Francis Jukes [q. v.] In 1788 Pollard was elected a fellow, and in the following year a director, of the Incorporated Society of Artists, which became extinct in 1791; in October 1836, as the last surviving member, he placed the charter, books, and papers of that body in the custody of the Royal Academy. The latter part of Pollard's life was spent in poverty and obscurity, and he died on 23 May 1838.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Nagler's Künstler-Lexicon; information from F. A. Eaton, esq.]