Author: Pollok, Robert
Biography:
POLLOK, Robert (1798-1827: ODNB)
The author of the wildly popular The Course of Time (it went to multiple editions in both the UK and America) was born at North Moorhouse, Renfrewshire, the seventh of eight children of John Pollok, a farmer, and his wife Margaret Dickie. Before attending the parish school he was educated at home by his mother. In boyhood, he suffered some kind of accident while running a race and this was supposed to have contributed to his death; in fact, it was most likely an early symptom of tuberculosis. At sixteen he took up cabinet making on the recommendation of his brother-in-law but gave it up after making four chairs. The same year he was deeply affected by being present at the death of his sister after childbirth and he later wrote about the experience in The Course of Time. In 1815 he and his older brother David—who wrote his biography—went to Fenwick school to prepare for entrance to the University of Glasgow. He had already begun writing both poetry and prose. He entered the university in 1817 (MA 1822). His family belonged to the Secession Church, and in 1822-27 he studied theology at the Divinity Hall of the United Secession Church and at the university. During this period, he wrote The Course of Time which was published by Blackwood, having been recommended by David Macbeth Moir and John Wilson (qq.v.). Pollok qualified as a probationer with the church and preached several times before increasing ill-health sent him to live with a physician in Slateford (near Edinburgh). In August 1827 he and one of his sisters set off for northern Italy for his health but he was detained first in London and then in Shirley Common (near Southampton) by illness. He died at Shirley Common and was buried in the churchyard at Millbrook. In addition to his poetry, he wrote three tales for youth: Helen of the Glen (1824), The Persecuted Family (1828), and Ralph Gemmell (1829). (ODNB 21 Aug. 2020; David Pollok, The Life of Robert Pollok [1843]) SR
Other Names:
- R. Pollok