Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/68

 He died at 19 Brunswick Terrace, Brighton, on 1 June 1871. He married, on 20 Aug. 1846, Mary Isabella, only daughter of William Urquhart of Craigston Castle, Aberdeenshire. The second son, Francis Edward Romulus Pollard Urquhart (b. 1848), became a major in the royal horse artillery in 1886.

Pollard-Urquhart was the author of: 1. ‘Agricultural Distress and its Remedies,’ Aberdeen, 1850. 2. ‘Essays on Subjects of Political Economy,’ 1850. 3. ‘The Substitution of Direct for Indirect Taxation necessary to carry out the Policy of Free Trade,’ 1851. 4. ‘Life and Times of Francisco Sforza, Duke of Milan,’ Edinburgh, 1852, 2 vols. (adversely criticised by the ‘Athenæum’). 5. ‘A short Account of the Prussian Land Credit Companies, with Suggestions for the Formation of a Land Credit Company in Ireland,’ Dublin, 1853. 6. ‘The Currency Question and the Bank Charter Committees of 1857 and 1858 reviewed. By an M.P.,’ 1860. 7. ‘Dialogues on Taxation, local and imperial,’ 1867.

[Burke's Landed Gentry, 1886, ii. 1879; Ann. Register, 1871, p. 154; Illustrated London News, 1871, lviii. 579.] 

POLLEXFEN, HENRY (1632?–1691), judge, born about 1632, was eldest son of Andrew Pollexfen of Stancombe, in the parish of Sherford, Devonshire. John Pollexfen [q. v.] was a brother. Called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1658, he became a bencher of his inn in 1674. His practice was soon extensive; known as a prominent whig, he appeared frequently for the defence in state trials. During the reigns of Charles II and James II he was counsel for Lord Arundel of Wardour on the trial of the ‘Five Popish Lords’ in 1680, for Colledge in 1681, for Fitzharris in the same year, for William Sacheverell in 1684, for the corporation of London in defence of its charter in 1682 (, folio ed. i. 532, 533, gives Pollexfen's argument in this case as communicated by himself), and for Sandys when sued for infringing the monopoly of the East India Company in 1684. He had earned the reputation of being an antagonist of the court and crown. Consequently his appearance as prosecutor for the crown, on the nomination of Chief-justice Jeffreys, against Monmouth's followers, and particularly Lady Alice Lisle, in 1685 at the assizes in the west, caused some surprise and gained him much unpopularity. The fact is probably explained by his being leader of the circuit, and he merely laid the evidence before the court (State Trials, xi. 316). In June 1688 he was employed in his accustomed kind of practice when, with Somers, for whose assistance he stipulated, he defended the seven bishops (ib. xii. 370). Upon the Revolution he was well known to be an adherent of the Prince of Orange, and to hold the opinion that the throne was left vacant by the late king (see Speaker Onslow's note to, ed. 1823, iii. 341; and , Diary, 14 Dec. 1688). He was accordingly among those summoned by the peers to advise them in the emergency, and also sat for Exeter in the Convention parliament. In February 1689 he was knighted and appointed attorney-general, and on 4 May promoted to be chief justice of the common pleas. Next month he was summoned before the House of Lords for expelling the Duke of Grafton from the treasury office of the common pleas granted to him by the crown. As a judge he scarcely increased his fame. His reports, which begin in 1670 and were posthumously published, are inferior; and Burnet (fol. ed. i. 460, 8vo, ii. 209) describes him as ‘an honest and learned, but perplexed lawyer.’ On 15 June 1691 he died at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was buried in Woodbury in Devonshire. Two engraved portraits by W. Elder and J. Savage are mentioned by Bromley.

[Foss's Judges of England; State Trials, vols. vii.–xii.; North's Lives, p. 214; Luttrell's Diary, i. 490–545, ii. 227, 231; Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 247; Prince's Worthies, p. 327.] 

POLLEXFEN, JOHN (fl. 1697), merchant and economic writer, born about 1638, was younger son of Andrew Pollexfen of Stancombe, in the parish of Sherford, Devonshire, and was brother of Sir Henry Pollexfen [q. v.] He settled in the parish of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, London. A member of the committee of trade and plantations in 1675, and of the board of trade from 1696 to 1705, he exercised much influence. He agitated for withdrawing the privileges of the old East India Company, and establishing a new company on a national basis. In 1697 he published ‘A Discourse of Trade, Coyn, and Paper Credit, and of ways and means to gain and retain riches. To which is added the Argument of a Learned Counsel [Sir Henry Pollexfen] upon an Action of the Case brought by the East India Company against Mr. Sand[y]s, an Interloper,’ London, 8vo. In this important pamphlet Pollexfen treats labour as the sole source of wealth, and points out that national wealth depends on the proportion between ‘those that depend to have their riches and necessaries from the sweat and labour of others,’ and ‘those that labour to provide those things’ (p. 44). Like