Frank Pick - Legacy

Legacy

Pick had not been well for some years. The stresses of his war work took a further toll on his health and he lost two stone during his travels around the country to research his report on the canal industry. Although exhausted at the end of the tour, he wrote to friends that he was struggling with the idleness and was hoping for something new to do. He died at his home, 15 Wildwood Road, Golders Green, on 7 November 1941 from a cerebral haemorrhage. His funeral was held at Golders Green Crematorium on 11 November 1941 and a memorial service was held at St Peter's Church, Eaton Square on 13 November 1941.

Working with Ashfield, Pick's impact on London's transport system was considerable. Transport historian Christian Wolmar considers it "almost impossible to exaggerate the high regard in which was held during its all too brief heyday, attracting official visitors from around the world eager to learn the lessons of its success and apply them in their own countries" and that "it represented the apogee of a type of confident public administration ... with a reputation that any state organisation today would envy ... only made possible by the brilliance of its two famous leaders, Ashfield and Pick." In his obituary of Pick, Charles Holden described him as "the Maecenas of our time." Writing in 1968, Nikolaus Pevsner described Pick as "the greatest patron of the arts whom this century has so far produced in England, and indeed the ideal patron of our age." Considering Pick's public statements on art and life, art historian Kenneth Clark suggested that "in a different age he might have become a sort of Thomas Aquinas". Historian Michael Saler compared Pick's influence on London Transport to that of Lord Reith on the BBC's development during the same inter-war period. Urban planner Sir Peter Hall suggested that Pick "had as much influence on London's development in the twentieth century as Haussmann had on that of Paris in the nineteenth", and historian Anthony Sutcliffe compared him to Robert Moses, the city planner responsible for many urban infrastructure projects in New York.

Pick's will was probated at £36,433 12s 9d (approximately £1.26 million in present day terms). In his will he bequeathed a Francis Dodd painting, Ely, to the Tate Gallery. He is commemorated with a memorial plaque at St Peter's School, York, unveiled in 1953 by Lord Latham, and a blue plaque was erected at his Golders Green home in 1981. A building at London Underground's Acton Works is named Frank Pick House in his honour. It stands on the north side of the Piccadilly and District line railway tracks to the east of Acton Town station.

Transport for London and the London Transport Museum maintain archives of Pick's business and personal papers.