Presumably the son of Admiral Sir George Pocock, 1706-1792, though the Dictionary of National Biography describes him as having only one son, George, who lived from 1765 to 1840 and was created a Baronet at the Coronation of George IV; his mother was Sophia Pitt, a granddaughter of Sir Francis Drake of Buckland Monachorum, 3rd Bt. His parents married in 1763.