A Scottish Poet in the Family Tree? 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Artistic”

 

Was Poet Robert Pollok the Brother of Third-Great-Grandfather John Pollok?

John Pollok: 1789-1851 (Paternal Third-Great-Grandfather)
Robert Pollok: 1798-1827 (Possible Third-Great-Uncle)
John Pollok: 1756-1831 (Possible Fourth-Great-Grandfather)

 

My in-laws, John and Laurel Aird, visited John’s Aunt Ruth MacNiven on Montserrat years ago, and Laurel took detailed notes as Ruth told them what she knew about her and John’s family history. I transcribed Laurel’s notes several years ago, and one notation caught my eye. Ruth claimed that her grandmother Jane Mary Pollok was the great-niece of Scottish poet Robert Pollok. When I saw the prompt for this week was “Artistic”, I decided to investigate this claim. Could I find any evidence backing up Ruth MacNiven’s assertion? It would be fascinating to have an acclaimed poet in the family tree.

First, I did some research on poet Robert Pollok. He was born October 19, 1798 in North Moorhouse or Muirhouse, Renfrewshire, Scotland. According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, he was the son of a “small farmer” and was “trained as a cabinet-maker and afterwards worked on his father’s farm…” His entry on Findagrave states that he was “the son of John Pollok, tenant of the farm at North Muirhouse, and his wife Margaret (nee Dickie) of Fenwick parish.”

Poet Robert Pollok

According to that bio, he first worked for his brother-in-law David Young as a carpenter. “Not satisfied with ’mechanical employment’, he moved once again to live with his uncle, David Dickie, at Fenwick…” While there, he trained with a parish teacher, preparing himself to study at a university. Robert attended the University of Glasglow and earned a Master of Arts degree. He then entered divinity school and, after five years of study, was licensed to preach in the United Secession Church of Scotland in 1827. Earlier that year, his ten-volume, blank-verse poem, “The Course of Time”, was published by the Blackwood publishing company. The poem “describes the mortal and immortal destiny of man” and is considered the Calvinist response to Milton’s Paradise Lost.

By the time of the poem’s publication, Pollok was severely ill with tuberculosis. With the financial assistance of friends, he prepared to travel to Italy, accompanied by one of his sisters, in the hope that a warmer climate would improve his health. He died before he could set sail from England. The Rosaline Masson biographical essay noted that:

“Almost immediately after his death, [The Course of Time] became extensively read throughout the British empire, especially among the numerous and respectable classes of dissenters. It has, accordingly, passed through a considerable number of editions, and now appears likely to keep its place among the standard poems in our language.”

Title page from 1847 printing of The Course of Time on Internet Archive.

An 1847 American printing of The Course of Time is available on Internet Archive. I am printing a short passage from Book Three of the nearly 200-page poem:

Of all the trees that in Earth’s vineyard grew,

And with their clusters tempted man to pull

And eat, -- one tree, one tree alone, the true

Celestial manna bore, which filled the soul—

The tree of Holiness—of heavenly seed;

A native of the skies; though stunted much,

And dwarfed, by Time’s cold, damp, ungenial soil,

And chilling winds, yet yielding fruit so pure,

So nourishing and sweet, as, on his way,

Refreshed the pilgrim; and begot desire

Unquenchable to climb the arduous path

To where her sister plants, in their own clime,

Around the fount, and by the stream of life,

Blooming beneath the Sun that never sets,

Bear fruit of perfect relish, fully ripe.

 

A monument to the poet stands in Newton Mearns. It was erected around 1900.

 

So how does Robert Pollok’s biography match up with that of Jane Mary Pollok’s grandfather? Jane’s grandfather, John Pollok, who I shall refer to as John Pollok 2, may have also been born in Eaglesham, Renfrewshire on April 26, 1789 to a father named John Pollok (John Pollok 1). This information comes from the wikitree on FamilySearch. The wikitree shows that John Pollok 1 was father to several children, John Pollok 2 being the oldest child, and Robert Pollak the poet being the youngest surviving child, which matches the information in the poet’s brief biographies on various websites. The tree on FamilySearch included two daughters, Margaret and Janet, so one of them could have been the sister that planned to accompany Robert to Italy. However, the FamilySearch tree has a serious problem: there are no sources for the information. None.

As for Ancestry, I was able to find a birth record for John Pollak 1. He was born December 17, 1756 in Mearns, Renfrewshire and baptized December 31, 1756, according to church records from Mearns. His parents were John and Jean Gilmour Pollok. I also located his Church of Scotland marriage record, which shows he married Margaret Dickie on May 9 1780 in Fenwick, Ayrshire. That location is only forty miles or so from Mearns, so it seems likely it is the same man. He appears to have died in 1831. A photo of his gravestone, referencing Eaglesham, is below.

 

John Pollok 1 headstone in Renfrewshire.

The first real Scotland census occurred in 1841, after his death, so without that type of information it is difficult to verify how many children John Pollok 1 and Margaret Dickie Pollok had. Since they married in 1780, John Pollok 2’s 1789 birthdate matches up well. However, I have been unable to find parish birth records for either John Pollok 2 or Robert Pollok, or any of the other supposed children of John Pollok 1 listed on FamilySearch.

 

So what can we conclude about Ruth MacNiven’s story about poet Robet Pollok being an ancestor? Ruth’s grandmother, Jane Pollok Shields, the source of the family tale, would have heard about her great-uncle Robert from her father, John Pollok 3, born in 1813. John Pollok 3 would have been fourteen years old when poet Robert Pollok died. He would have met his uncle and been intimate with other family members of the poet. Jane herself was born only forty years after the poet’s death, so she would also have known his contemporaries and family members. Assuming Jane was truthful, I find her story credible.

 

Jane Mary Pollok Shields

However, until I have some actual documentation to verify that Robert Pollok and John Pollok 2 were brothers, I will continue to note that the relationship is merely an unverified hypothesis. As my research skills with respect to Scotland's records improve, I hope to be able to provide a definitive answer in the future.

 

Sources:

1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 22. Pollok, Robert. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Pollok,_Robert

Significant Scots. Pollok and Ayton. By Rosaline Masson for the Famous Scots Series (1898) (pdf). https://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/pollok_robert.htm

East Renfrewshire Culture & Leisure. Robert Pollak. https://www.ercultureandleisure.org/libraries/heritage/portal-to-the-past/people/art-literature/robert-pollok/

Robert Pollok. Findagrave Entry. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/228792895/robert-pollok?_

The Course of Time. Robert Pollok. Edward Kearny, pub. New York, NY. 1847. https://archive.org/details/courseoftimepoem00pol/page/n7/mode/2up