TRAFALGAR’S FORGOTTEN HERO.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 10, 10 December 1936, Page 26

TRAFALGAR’S FORGOTTEN HERO.

The watch of Lieutenant John Pollard, a midshipman at Trafalgar, was one of tlie interesting articles disposed of recently at a London art sale. By it hangs a tale, for John Pollard was one of the two midshipmen (Francis Collingwood was the other) who were in tlie fighting-top of the A lctoiy when Nelson was brought down by a musket shot from the mizzen-top ol the French frigate Redoubtable, which the Admiral’s ship had fouled. Sergeant Robert Guilleinard was the sharpshooter, as he claimed, and he afterwards wrote Ids story, on which doubt has been thrown. But there is also uncertainty as to what Midshipmen Pollard and Collingwood did Tliev continued to flic at tho French fighting-top until it was cleared ol sharpshooters. Pollard’s story is that Collingwood went down to the desk first, but that he continued to fire till not a Frenchman was leit. H:s story was the one believed by the men on the Victory, and was on the whole accepted by the navv and the Admiralty. Pollard’s watch is engraved ,as from Francis Collingwood, for services rendered, October, 1805. There was also a presentation from the Admiralty and from the officers of H.M.S. Victory. So it seems that Pollard’s claim to bo the “avenger of Nelson” is fairly well founded, but he received small reward beyond the watch and a telescope. He remained nearly 50 years a lieutennt, and died holding a small post in Greenwich Hospital.