Clan Pollock

History

The surname comes from Pulloc, an old estate on the south bank of the Clyde in Renfrewshire. The name lives on in Pollok, Pollokshaws and Pollokshields, all now within Glasgow. According to the clan society, Peter, one of Fulbert's sons, was the first person to carry it as a surname.

Little is known about Fulbert from Scottish records. The society's historian argues that he was probably a Norman of real importance in England before the family moved north. His sons Peter, Robert and Helya (Elias) are said to have arrived in Scotland during the twelfth century in the service of Walter fitzAlan, the first High Steward. Land in Renfrewshire was granted to them.

Robert's descendants became the senior branch, known as Pollok of Pollok or Pollok of that Ilk. They held Upper Pollok, and also land at Stenton in East Lothian. Nether Pollok went another way. It passed to Roland of Mearns and later, through marriage, to the Maxwells of Caerlaverock. The two families remained neighbours in the barony, and the society points to a long association between them. The Pollock tartan, built on a Maxwell sett, echoes that connection.

Pollok Castle stood at Upper Pollok and served as the family's seat. Accounts differ on how it looked in its last years, with some describing a Victorian baronial house rebuilt after a fire. All agree that it held military stores in the Second World War and was demolished in 1954. Its sale closed roughly eight hundred years of Pollok ownership of the estate.

In 1703 Sir Robert Pollock was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. The society names the last of the direct male line as Sir Robert Pollok, 18th of that Ilk and 2nd Baronet, who died in 1783. Today nobody holds the title, and Pollock is generally described as an armigerous clan.

The modern clan society grew from an effort led by Rhys Pollock in 1979. In 1980 it adopted a tartan of its own and had it registered. Its badge shows a boar pierced by an arrow, and its motto, Audacter et strenue, means boldly and strongly.