POMPALLIER, JEAN-BAPTISTE-FRANÇOIS. — Born on 11 December 1801 in Lyon, he died at Puteaux (Paris) on 21 December 1871. Ordained a priest in 1829, he had pastoral charge at S. te Madeleine de Tarare until 1832. He was one of the four priests of the diocese of Lyon who assembled in 1830 to found the Society of Mary.
He took part in the election of the first Superior General on 24 September 1836, but did not make vows in the Society of Mary. On 29 April 1836 Gregory XVI approved the Society of Mary and entrusted it with the missions of Western Oceania; on 13 May 1836 P. was appointed Apostolic Vicar of Western Oceania, with the task of leading the first group of Marists to the missions. On 30 June 1836 he was consecrated bishop by Gregory XVI, and on 24 December 1836 he sailed from Le Havre for his vicariate, which comprised the Fiji Islands, Tonga, Samoa, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and New Zealand. On 10 January 1838 he landed in New Zealand with Fr. Servant and Brother Michele. He had entrusted Wallis Island to Fr. Batraillon and Futuna to Fr. Chanel. At that time political relations between the French and the English were strained. In the Treaty of Waitangi, in 1840, P. obtained religious freedom for New Zealand, and the mission was able to develop successfully. In his zeal P. paid little heed to the fact that his missionaries were also religious and, as such, subject to their Superiors. The conflict ended with the Marists being entrusted with the vicariate of Central Oceania and, in 1848, with the diocese of Port Nicholson. He himself, together with a few French and Irish secular priests, assumed the diocese of Auckland. In 1859 a rebellion by the Maori almost completely ruined the missions. On 3 July 1860 P. became residential bishop of Auckland. In 1869 he resigned the see in order to return to France. He was then appointed titular archbishop of Amasia.