The eldest son of Sir Jonathan Frederick Pollock, 1st Baronet by his first wife, he was educated under private tutors, at St Paul's School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a scholarship in 1835, graduated BA in 1836, and proceeded MA in 1840.
Pollock was called to the bar at the Inner Temple on 26 January 1838, and went the Northern Circuit, in which he held for some years the post of revising barrister.
His entertaining ‘Personal Remembrances,’ which he published in 1887, show how various were his accomplishments, and how numerous his friendships in the world of letters, science, and art.
His portrait was painted by W. W. Ouless, R.A. Pollock was author of ‘The Divine Comedy; or the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante rendered into English’ (in closely literal blank verse, with fine plates by Dalziel from drawings by George, afterwards Sir George Scharf, mostly after Flaxman), London, 1854, 8vo.
Henry Creed, vicar of Corse, Gloucestershire; of his three sons, the eldest, Sir Frederick Pollock, 3rd Baronet, was Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford (1883–1903).