Frank Pick - Early Life

Early Life

Frank Pick was born on 23 November 1878 at Spalding, Lincolnshire. He was the first child of five born to draper Francis Pick and his wife Fanny Pick (née Clarke). Pick's paternal grandfather, Charles Pick, was a farmer in Spalding who died in his forties leaving eight children. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Clarke, was a blacksmith and Wesleyan lay preacher. As a child, Pick was bookish, preferring to read and build collections of moths and butterflies and objects found on the beach rather than take part in sports.

Before becoming a draper, Pick's father had had an ambition to become a lawyer and he encouraged his son to follow this career. Pick attended St Peter's School in York on a scholarship, but failed to get a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. Instead, he was articled to a York solicitor, George Crombie, in March 1897. He qualified in January 1902 and completed a law degree at the University of London in the same year, but he was not sufficiently interested in a legal career to apply to practice.

In 1902, Pick began working for the North Eastern Railway. He worked first in the company's traffic statistics department before becoming assistant to the company's general manager, Sir George Gibb in 1904. In 1904, Pick married Mabel Mary Caroline Woodhouse. The couple had no children.