Obituary—Mr. Frank Pick

We are proud to welcome him to St. Peter's School. In him we have the unusual combination of scholar and administrator. More than this, we have in him the Anglican cleric at his best. We shall find that the passing of years— for very many of which may he be with us !—will deepen our affection for him. It is in this sure confidence that a welcome is bespoken for him as our new Chairman.

' OBITUARY.

MR. FRANK PICK.

It is with deep regret that we have to record the death, on the 7th November, 1941, of Mr. Frank Pick. As one of the Chiefs of London Transport and for a time Director General of the Ministry of Information, Mr. Pick was probably the most distinguished Old Peterite of recent years. He died unexpectedly at his home in North-West London from a sudden onset of cerebral haemorrhage. He would have been 63 on November 23rd.

Mr. Pick, who was born at Spalding, Lincs., was at St. Peter's under the Rev. G. T. Handford. On leaving school he was articled to Mr. George Crombie, solicitor. He qualified later, but joined the railway service under Sir George Gibb, on the old North Eastern Railway, and went with him to London to join the Underground Group in 1906.

Later he was transferred to serve under Lord Ashfield, and continued with him as managing director of the Underground Group of Companies until their transfer to the London Passenger Transport Board. From 1933-40 he was Vice-Chairman of the Board.

He sat on many important committees concerned with transport, was a member of the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure, and was Chairman of the Council for Art and Industry of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Pick was responsible for the introduction of the artistic advertising posters which did so much to brighten London's underground railways.

His greatest achievement, probably,. was the organisation in peace-time, at the request of the Government, of the evacuation scheme for London. The scheme worked without a hitch when it was put into operation, and there was not a single casualty.

In 1940 he was engaged on special investigations for the Minister of Transport, one of his tasks being to visit ports

and report on the organisation set up to secure the speedy discharge and clearance of goods. He was released from that work in August, 1940, to become Director-General of the Ministry of Information, a position which he resigned four months later. Early this year Mr. Pick was appointed by the Minister of Transport to investigate and report on the carriage of traffic on canals and inland waterways.

Many of those now in the School will recall that Mr. Pick visited St. Peter's in July, 1939, to present the prizes at the last Commemoration before the outbreak of war.

The following appreciations are reprinted from " The Times " :-

F. L. M. writes :-

During the last 12 months Frank Pick's mind was constantly on reconstruction problems, and he published two pamphlets, " Britain Must Rebuild," and, issued only a couple of weeks ago, " Paths to Peace." Taken together, the two pamphlets perhaps represent better than anything else a summing up of what decent, well educated, socially minded people are thinking and hoping, both for national and international reconstruction. The other aspect of Pick was his great interest in, and influence upon, art. Walter Elliot once picked up and publicly used a phrase of mine about Pick. He said that he was the nearest approach to Lorenzo the Magnificent that a modern democracy could achieve. The justification for this phrase was that Pick brought into his public capacity his intense interest in all forms of art, and probably did more to encourage modern art, both in its pure and commercialized forms, than any man in his generation.

When originally formed, the Poster Sub-Committee of the Empire Marketing Board consisted of Pick and myself. He did all the interviewing of artists and the consideration of designs. We decorated Britain, and to come across one of our poster frames in some dreary town was illuminating. The fact that he was equally interested in architecture and in landscape made him equally valuable to the town planner and to the C.P.R.E., and, as his pamphlet " Britain Must Rebuild " shows, he could have co-ordinated these two aspects of post-war planning. Pick had a Nonconformist conscience, and was naturally rather uncompromising. These factors did not smooth his path when, after the outbreak of war, he took up duties under the final direction of political Ministers. As a result I suppose his contribution to the war effort, though substantial, was less than his character