Governor John Garland Pollard

JOHN GARLAND POLLARD was born in King and Queen County, Virginia. He attended Richmond College and received an LL.B. from Columbian (now George Washington) University Law School in 1893. He practiced law in Richmond for several decades and was involved as well in various banking enterprises. He was Chairman of the Virginia Commission on Uniform State Laws from 1902 to 1907. He also served simultaneously as Attorney General of Virginia and a member of the State Board of Education from 1913 to 1917. After a failed bid for the governorship, he became involved with war welfare work in France and Germany in 1918 and 1919, after which he was appointed a member of the War Department’s Board of Contract Adjustment, organized to settle disputed war claims. He was also a member of the Federal Trade Commission in 1920-21. He then taught at the College of William and Mary before running again for governor, this time successfully. Serving as governor during the Depression, he instituted an economy program that included a ten-percent reduction in his own salary. After leaving office, Pollard was appointed chairman of the U.S. Board of Veterans’ Appeals, serving in that capacity until his death. He was also president of the Children’s Home Society of Virginia from 1901 to 1920, president of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and chief sponsor of the Virginia Art Commission. Pollard authored A Connotary: Definitions Not Found in Dictionaries, Collected from the Sayings of the Wise and Otherwise (1935)