The Pollock Medal is a prize awarded to the best cadet of the season, in commemoration of Sir George Pollock's exploits in Afghanistan, first at the East India Company's Military Seminary, at Addiscombe Military Academy

Addiscombe Military Academy

The East India Company Military Seminary, colloquially known as Addiscombe Seminary, Addiscombe College, or Addiscombe Military Academy was a British military academy at Addiscombe, Surrey, in what is now the London Borough of Croydon. It was established in 1809, and closed in 1861...

, and later at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...

.

Foundation

In 1844, the British inhabitants of Calcutta raised a subscription of 11,000 rupees to commemorate General George Pollock’s

George Pollock

Field Marshal Sir George Pollock, 1st Baronet, GCB, GCSI was a British soldier.-Military career:Educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Pollock was commissioned into the Bengal Artillery in 1803....

 victories in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 after the disastrous retreat

Massacre of Elphinstone's Army

The Massacre of Elphinstone's Army was the destruction by Afghan forces, led by Akbar Khan, the son of Dost Mohammad Khan, of a combined British and Indian force of the British East India Company, led by Major General William Elphinstone, in January 1842....

 of the British army of occupation from Kabul

Kabul

Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

 in January 1842. This was to consist of a medal to be presented twice a year “to the most distinguished cadet at the East India Company’s Military Seminary, at Addiscombe, near Croydon in England, on passing the biennial examination for a commission.”

Description

The original medal, valued at sixteen guineas, was designed by General Macleod and was first presented in December 1847, with the following inscription:

To commemorate eminent services
Major-General Sir George Pollock, K.C.B.
Bengal Artillery, Cabul 1842
Treachery avenged – British honour vindicated – Disasters retrieved – British captives delivered – Khyber Pass

Khyber Pass

The Khyber Pass, is a mountain pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan.The Pass was an integral part of the ancient Silk Road. It is mentioned in the Bible as the "Pesh Habor," and it is one of the oldest known passes in the world....

 forced – Jellalabad relieved – Victories of Mamoo Khail, Jugdulluck, Tezeen, Istaliff

And on the reverse:

Military Seminary, Addiscombe
Pollock Prize
Presented by the British Inhabitants of Calcutta, and Awarded by the Court of Directors of the East India Company, to the most distinguished Cadet of the Season.

Changes

In 1861, the Secretary of State for India, who was now responsible for the management of Indian affairs after the British government had taken India over from the East India Company, decided to have a new medal of a smaller size. The medal was valued at twelve guineas, and part of the inscription recording the services of Sir George Pollock and his army was omitted.

The new version continued to have the portrait of Sir George Pollock but with the inscription:

Pollock, Cabul, 1842;

And on its reverse:

Pollock Prize, Royal Military Academy
Founded by the British inhabitants of Calcutta
to commemorate the eminent services of Major-General Sir George Pollock, G.C.B., and awarded to the most distinguished Cadet of the season

Although Sir George Pollock was not consulted over the changes, he continued to present the medal in person whenever his health allowed him until 4 months before his death, when he presented it to John Copsey Addison in June 1872

Holders

The following is the roll of Pollock Medalists until February 1875 as recorded on tablets fixed on the walls of the great dining hall of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich:

Awarded at Addiscombe

NAME	AWARDED	GAZETTED TO		NAME	AWARDED	GAZETTED TO
Edward C.S. Williams	June, 1848	Bengal Engineers		James J. Mc. L. Innes James John McLeod Innes Lieutenant General James John McLeod Innes VC CB was a Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.Born in British India to Scottish parents Innes was educated...	December, 1848	Bengal Engineers
Thomas G. Montgomerie Thomas George Montgomerie Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas George Montgomerie was a British surveyor who participated in the Great Trigonometric Survey of India as a lieutenant in the 1850's. He was the person to label K2, the second highest mountain in the world, the K standing for Karakoram...	June, 1849	Bengal Engineers		George A. Craster	December, 1849	Bengal Engineers
Patrick Stewart	June, 1850	Bengal Engineers		Frederick S. Stanton	December, 1850	Bengal Engineers
Henry Goodwyn	June, 1851	Ditto		James P. Basevi	December, 1851	Bengal Engineers
Arthur M. Lang	June, 1852	Bengal Engineers		Salisbury M. Trevor	December, 1852	Bengal Engineers
John M. Champain	June, 1853	Bengal Engineers		Edward R. Holland	December, 1853	Bombay Engineers
William Jeffreys	June, 1854	Bengal Engineers		Aeneas R. R. Macdonald	December, 1854	Tempry. Commission H.E.I.Co’s Engrs.
Charles H. Luard	June, 1855	Bengal Engineers		John Eckford	December, 1855	Bengal Engineers
John M. McNeile	June, 1856	Bengal Engineers		John Herschel	December, 1856	Bengal Engineers
Keith A. Jopp	June, 1857	Bombay Engineers		Lewis C. Gordon	December, 1857	Bengal Engineers
William M. Campbell	June, 1858	Bombay Engineers		William H. Pierson	December, 1858	Bengal Engineers
Arthur W. Elliot	June, 1859	Not appointed – resigned the service		William Shepherd	December, 1859	Bengal Engineers
Allan J. C. Cunningham	June, 1860	Bengal Engineers		Kellow C. Pye	December, 1860	Royal Engineers Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
William J. Williamson	June, 1861	General List, Royal Infantry

In 1861 The East India Company handed over control of its Indian possessions to the British government and the East India Company's military units were incorporated into the British army. The Military Seminary at Addiscombe was closed and the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich took over the training of new officers.

Awarded at Woolwich

NAME	AWARDED	GAZETTED TO		NAME	AWARDED	GAZETTED TO
				Clayton S. Beauchamp	December, 1861	Royal Engineers
Thomas Fraser	June, 1862	Royal Engineers		Valentine F. Rowe	December, 1862	Royal Engineers
Herbert P. Knocker	June, 1863	Royal Engineers		Francis Mascall	December, 1863	Royal Engineers
Henry R. G. Georges	June, 1864	Royal Engineers		William G. Nicholson William Nicholson, 1st Baron Nicholson Field Marshal William Gustavus Nicholson, 1st Baron Nicholson, GCB , was a British Army officer who, in a half-century of service, rose through the ranks in India and the Boer War to the rank of Field Marshal...	December, 1864	Royal Engineers
Sydney L. Jacob	June, 1865	Royal Engineers		Charles M. Watson	December, 1865	Royal Engineers
John E. Broadbent	June, 1866	Royal Engineers		Harry M. Chambers	December, 1866	Royal Engineers
Felician R. de Wolski	June, 1867	Royal Engineers		Francis J. Day	December, 1867	Royal Engineers
George S. Clarke	June, 1868	Royal Engineers		Henry H. S. Cunynghame	December, 1868	Royal Engineers
Henry J. Harman	June, 1869	Royal Engineers		Richard de Villamil Richard de Villamil Lieutenant-Colonel Richard de Villamil was a British army officer and physicist.-Life:Richard de Villamil was the grandson of Martin de Villamil . He attended the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich where he won the Pollock Medal for the most distinguished cadet of the year in 1869...	December, 1869	Royal Engineers
Herbert C. Chermside Herbert Chermside Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Charles Chermside GCMG, CB was a British soldier who served as Governor of Queensland in Australia from 1902 to 1904.-Early life and education:...	June, 1870	Royal Engineers		Phillip Cardew	December, 1870	Royal Engineers
Henry G. Kunhardt	June, 1871	Royal Engineers		Henry E. McCallum Henry Edward McCallum Sir Henry Edward McCallum colonial governor born Yeovil, Somersetshire, England and died in England....	February, 1872	Royal Engineers
John C. Addison	June, 1872	Royal Engineers		William C. Godsal	October, 1872	Royal Engineers
Henry D. Love	February, 1873	Royal Engineers		John C. Campbell	June, 1973	Royal Engineers
Matthew H. P. R. Sankey	October, 1873	Royal Engineers		Charles F. Hadden	February, 1874	Royal Artillery
Hugh M. Sinclair	July, 1874	Royal Engineers		Maurice A. Cameron	February, 1875	Royal Engineers

The above two lists are taken from Memoir to Illustrate the Origin and Foundation of the Pollock Medal (Boddy and Co., Military Publishers, Woolwich, 1875).

Research has uncovered other recipients of the Pollock medal:

NAME	AWARDED	GAZETTED TO	SOURCE
Hubert John Foster	1876?	Royal Engineers, January 1875	Australian Dictionary of Biography Australian Dictionary of Biography The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a national, co-operative enterprise, founded and maintained by the Australian National University to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's history....
Matthew Nathan Matthew Nathan Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Matthew Nathan GCMG, PC was a British soldier and civil servant, who variously served as the Governor of Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Natal and Queensland...	1880	Royal Engineers May 1880	Jewish Encyclopedia Jewish Encyclopedia The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
James Edward Edmonds James Edmonds James Edmonds may refer to:* James Barker Edmonds , American lawyer and politician* James Edward Edmonds , British Army officer and military historian* James Edmonds , British cricketer-See also:...	1881	Royal Engineers July 1881	University of Birmingham University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
J F W Johnson	1884		Little Stour Books - memoir listed in catalogue
G P Lenox-Conyngham	1885	Royal Engineers	Biographic Memoir by E.C. Bullard
James Morris Colquhoun Colvin James Morris Colquhoun Colvin James Morris Colquhoun Colvin VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces....	1889	Royal Engineers July 1889	Royal Engineers Museum Royal Engineers Museum The Royal Engineers Museum, Library & Archive is a military engineering museum and library in Gillingham, Kent, England. It tells the story of the Corps of Royal Engineers and British military engineering in general.-History:The Library was founded in 1812...
Edmund Tillotson Rich	?	Royal Engineers July 1893	Royal Geographical Society Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
Kenneth Essex Edgeworth Kenneth Edgeworth Kenneth Essex Edgeworth, DSO, MC was an Irish astronomer, economist and engineer. He is best known for proposing the existence of a disc of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune in the 1940s in much the same manner as Gerard Kuiper would publish ten years later...	?	Royal Engineers 1900	Institut de Mecanique Celeste et de Calcul des Ephemerides Institut de mécanique céleste et de calcul des éphémérides The Institut de mécanique céleste et de calcul des éphémérides was founded in 1998. It deals with celestial mechanics, the dynamics and astrometry of solar system objects....  (IMCCE)/CERES 2001
Rowland Latimer Almon	1907	Royal Engineers 1907	Lorettonian Society
John Edward Lovelace Carter	1935	Royal Engineers
John Robert Edward Hamilton-Baillie	1938	Royal Engineers 1939	Obituaries in The Times The Times The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International... and Daily Telegraph
David Willison David Willison Lieutenant-General Sir David Willison KCB, OBE, MC was a British soldier who served with the Royal Engineers between 1939 and 1963, from when he served in a series of military intelligence roles until his retirement from the army in 1975...	1939	Royal Engineers 1938	Obituary in The Times The Times The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

Source

Memoir to Illustrate the Origin and Foundation of the Pollock Medal (Boddy and Co., Military Publishers, Woolwich, 1875), although anonymous, probably written by Field Marshal Sir Linton Simmons. Available at http://www.pollock.4mg.com/Memoir.htm

Other recipients of the Pollock Medal:

Maurice A Cameron February 1875 Royal Engineers

H J Foster Fenruary 1875 (Royal Engineers)

(commission dates follow, not medal award dates)

V.H.P Caillard August 1875

J H Cowan February 1876

W H Turton August 1876

A P Codd January 1877

H W Laffan Junwe 1877

E Agar October 1877

A M Mantell January 1878

S Davidson December 1878

I Winn April 1879

I Dallas July 1879

E H Hemming February 1880

M Nathan May 1880

W F H S Kincaid July 1880

C Hill July 1881

I F Edmonds July 1881

I R L Macdonald February 1882

R I H L Mackenzie July 1882
Source
A Copy of the "Memoir to illustrate the origin and foundation of the Pollock Medal" given to H D Love (1873 recipient) by Lt Gen Simmons and currently held by Capt. S Marshall RE (Gt.Gt.Granddaughter of HD Love).