Pickup as a name is thought to be derived from the
hamlet of Pickup Bank
above the town of Darwen on Darwen Moor in northeast Lancashire,
England. The name Pickup
Bank comes from three Old English words; "Pike" meaning peak or
hill;
"Copp" meaning cap or top and "Bank" meaning the side of (as in
river
bank). "Pickup" can be translated as "hilltop". There are other
similar names based on the same source but these are now largely
extinct.
"Pickop" was frequently used in the 19th century. "Piccop";
"Pickoppe" and "Pickuppe" can all be found on older documents.
The cottage industry of weaving woolen cloth had long been
established in the area and the
Pickup family was certainly involved in this before 1840. With the
coming of the
Industrial Revolution, large cotton weaving mills sprang up in the
towns taking advantage
of indigenous weaving skills. Handloom weavers were also unable to
compete with the
factories and there began a slow migration away from the upland
villages towards the
burgeoning towns in the valleys. It was in the valleys that water
power could be
harnessed. Later, canals and railroads in the valleys provided
export routes to the rest
of England and the Colonies. Import routes for raw cotton came
from America through the
port of Liverpool.
Pickups moved with the times. First from rural Witton and
Tockholes then into the Lower
Darwen valley during the 1850's. During the 1860's the family was
living in Ewood on the
edge of Blackburn. During the 1890's they were living in the town
of Blackburn itself and
the newly built suburb of Queens Park in the 1890's.
Three generations worked as cotton-loom overlookers before cotton
weaving faded away after
the Second World War. Later generations have mostly moved away
from Lancashire to find
work and there have been migrations to the south of England; to
Canada and to Australia.
Pickup Y-DNA project (ysearch)
E-mail address: martynpickup (at) aol.com
This data was updated on Wednesday 30 June 2004
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