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These four images represent the birth rates for all surnames and then for the three main variants between 1838 and 1977. I chose those dates in particular because that way I would have complete decades. It's interesting to note that the trends (the pink lines) roughly correspond with each other.

Tags: births, paddick, paddock, padwick, rate

A list of first names from the England & Wales births index with numbers in brackets representing their popularity. These are with all surnames and variants combined, from 1837 to 1983. Middle names are not listed and slight variants in spelling are grouped together. Only A through C listed here, more to appear later (due to length of message).

If you're a Pad**ck parent looking for an unusual baby name, don't go for any of the following!

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Tags: births, given, paddick, paddock, padwick

The last time I did this it was only up to 1911, because I had yet to double check my research for later years. This is an outline of the variants of surnames in the one-name study, from 1837 to 1983.

With each variant I will post in parentheses the number that appeared between 1837 and 1911, just to save constant scrolling up and down of the screen.

• PADDACK: 2 (2)


• PADDICK: 924 (467)


• PADDICOMBE: 1 (1)


• PADDIT: 2 (0)


• PADDOCH: 1 (1)


• PADDOCK: 3,544 (1,777)


• PADDOCK-DHALIWAL: 1 (0)


• PADDOCK-HODGES: 3 (2)


• PADDOCKS: 3 (2)


• PADDOX: 1 (1)


• PADDUCK: 6 (6)


• PADEVICK: 1 (1)


• PADEVIT: 4 (0)


• PADIAK: 2 (0)


• PADICK: 6 (6)


• PADNICK: 1 (1)


• PADNIUK: 8 (0)


• PADOCK: 7 (7)


• PADOLAK: 1 (0)


• PADRICK: 2 (1)


• PADUANC: 1 (0)


• PADUCH: 27 (0)


• PADUCK: 1 (1)


• PADUGH: 1 (0)


• PADURCK: 1 (0)


• PADUREK: 1 (0)


• PADWICK: 1,038 (605)


• PADWICKE: 8 (1)


• PADWIKE: 1 (1)


• PADZIK: 2 (0)

So what can we surmise from this? Obviously there are a lot more variants, but most of these are down to the influx of foreign settlers, particularly Eastern European into Britain following the Second World War. One distinct name has come forward, PADUCH, as a Polish name that sounds like PADDOCK, so much so that I have already come across incidences of the Anglicised version of the name being used. PADWICK remains a stronger variant than PADDICK, meaning that I seriously have to register that as a variant with the Guild, however it has become less common in the latter part of the 20th century: there are as few as two births a year in parts of the 1970s and 1980s.

A statistical breakdown of the commonality of variants would also, I feel, bear more illumination on the name, however that will have to wait for another day.

Tags: births, paddick, paddock, paduch, padwick, variants

Time for another biography, methinks, though this one's going to be a lot shorter and pinched largely from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. I've decided to run with the main variant of my surname just for a bit of balance, so here's what I have found out about the Victorian pugilist, Tom Paddock, "The Redditch Needlepointer".



Tom was baptised (under the name Thomas Padock) on 25th August 1822 in Redditch, Worcestershire, the son of George Padock and Elizabeth (née Morris). Brought up on a farm, he was noted to have developed a size and endurance that lasted him well in his career as a boxer.

His professional career as a boxer started in 1844; at the time he was just under six feet tall and weighed twelve stone. Between then and 1850 he was largely undefeated in the boxing ring, and gained a reputation not only for his courageousness but for his foul tactics and uncontrollable temper. It was William Thompson of Nottingham who spoilt his clean record in 1850.

Five years later however Paddock had progressed to become the (disputed) Boxing Champion of England, confirmed in 1856 following fifty one rounds in the ring against Harry Broome. However his victory was sort lived; he lost the title later the same year. He attempted to regain the title but never actually managed it.

An interesting story of gentlemanship and charity offered to him reported in the DNB is that Paddock had an ambition to fight another boxer by the name of Tom Sayers (1826 - 1865), however when the time came for the fight to take place Paddock was ill and couldn't make it to the match. Upon hearing the plight of his opponent, Sayers visited Paddock in hospital and upon learning of the latter's poverty, gave him £5 to see him through to recovery. In 1858, when Paddock had made a complete recovery, they saw each other in a boxing ring in Canvey Island after Sayers agreed to a lower stake because of Paddock's financial state. After twenty one rounds of boxing Paddock was clearly in a bad way and rather than dealing the final blow to win the match, Sayers took him by the hand and led him back to his corner, where his seconds promptly "threw in the towel". It's a shame Paddock wasn't that much of a gentleman himself.

Paddock's last fight took place in 1860. He died of heart disease on 30th June 1863.

Overall what I have come to learn about Tom Paddock was that he was far from a gentleman and that his boxing success came more from his sheer size, braun and anger problem than with any kind of boxing skill. One final story that appears to confirm this opinion is that in a boxing match where Tom Spring was present the ageing referee disqualified Paddock after a foul blow when his opponent was down, and Paddock and his friends started laying into the referee: it took the gentleman-ness of Spring to get into the ring and defend the elderly victim.

• Details of each fight in Paddock's boxing career

Note: The author agrees to license this content under the GNU Free Documentation License

Tags: biography, paddock, worcestershire

I re-read some of Rory Paddock's research recently, and something that he points out in his research is the familiarity of certain variants of the Paddick/Paddock name. Never one to copy someone else's work, I thought I would take a database that I had compiled and note the results.

I have a complete database of Paddick and variant births registered in England and Wales between 1837 and 1911. Of those I recorded some may be variants of other names and not true variants according to my research, however I erred on the side of inclusion whenever in doubt.

The following is a table of the numbers related to the varients in spelling found (listed alphabetically).

• PADDACK: 2


• PADDICK: 467


• PADDICOMBE: 1


• PADDOCH: 1


• PADDOCK: 1,777


• PADDOCK-HODGES: 2


• PADDOCKS: 2


• PADDOX: 1


• PADDUCK: 6


• PADEVICK: 1


• PADICK: 6


• PADNICK: 1


• PADOCK: 7


• PADRICK: 1


• PADUCK: 1


• PADWICK: 605


• PADWICKE: 1


• PADWIKE: 1

From this I can see that I need to amend the names that I have registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies. Currently I don't have PADWICK registered and that's most certainly a main variant, however I do have PADDACK registered and that's way down the list. And of those only PADDICOMBE is possibly a variant of another surname altogether, but I can't work out what it is.

I will post again on this topic when I have completed the births registered up to 1983.

Tags: births, paddick, paddock, padwick, variants

Several theories exist as to the origin of the name Paddick/Paddock, and all of them may be true.

The main origin that has been proven is that it is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word pearroc, meaning a paddock or field. This is true of the Shropshire Paddocks, the main and largest group of Paddocks in the world. That line has been traced by a New Zealander by the name of Rory Paddock, and the name started out as "Parrock" and became Paddock over time through changes in the regional dialect. Early progenitors with the Paddock name were styled de la Pearroc, meaning "of the paddock". However in this line the variant Paddick (with an "i") was never used and it is thought that Paddick has a different origin than Paddock.

Paddick in fact has two origins, depending on where your ancestors were from. In Hampshire, which is the origin of one of the two groups of Paddicks, it is thought that there used to be a hamlet by the name of Padwick, and that this is where this group originated. It has been suggested by one researcher that the Hertfordshire Paddicks also descend from this group. There are Padwicks still in the world today whose origins stem from Hampshire, and historically, the names Paddick and Padwick were interchangeable here. The hamlet name is thought to mean, "Padda's farm".

The other origin of the Paddicks may be found in the south west, in Bristol. This is the group from which I am descended. In 1324 a French merchant arrived in Bristol by the name of Jean le Pedoc, meaning "John the Toad". His descendants became known by the name Paddock, and later, through changes in regional dialect, nearly all became known as Paddick. I wondered for many years why someone would be called a toad, and the answer came from the Oxford English Dictionary. In medieval England to call someone a toad was to accuse them of being particularly nasty, mean or spiteful. So my ancestor was a horrible git. Nice thought.

Tags: origin, paddick, paddock

This is for those of you who are wondering, "what happens if I enquire about my ancestor?" The likelihood is that I'm not going to be able to hand you your entire ancestry on a silver platter, but then you don't really want me to do that, deep down. What you really want me to do is to help you get over a particular stumbling block so that you can go away again and trace your ancestors for yourself. That is the story for most people who contact me although if I am mistaken, I am most humbly sorry for assuming things about you.

Let me run through an enquiry I received recently, from a a correspondant of Australia. He emailed me, writing:

In looking through the UKBDM i noticed an entry made by yourself for a John Paddock born June 1841 in Ellesmere England. Volume 18 Page 70.

I am wondering if you have any additional information for this person, such as his father, mother, children, wife etc. as i am fairly certain that he was an ancestor of mine.

My grandfather was Henry John Paddock born 1863 in Avoca, , Victoria Australia. his father John and mother Annie [Maiden name was Chapple]. If i can establish that the John Paddock that i am inquiring about is in fact my Grt. Grt. Grandfather then i would be seeking a birth certificate for him.

My first job was to look through research that has been submitted to me by other Paddock researchers, to see if I already have a family tree for his ancestor. I did not. So the best thing I can do in a case such as this is to give the researcher what research I have done for the location and period, with a few nuggets of my experience of family history, and allow him to make up his own mind.

The first thing I did was to look for his ancestor on ancestry.co.uk, paying particular attention to the 1841 census. Remember that June quarter 1841 would have been when the birth of John Paddock was registered: he may have been born earlier. There were three John Paddocks from that period all born in Shropshire on the 1841 census: two of them I already have in other family trees so I know it's not them, and the last one, registered as being just one month old, was listed as living in Ellesmere with his parents Edward and Jane Paddock.

The 1851 census bore no fruit whatsoever. So either the young John Paddock unfortunately passed away before the census was taken, or seeing as I couldn't find the parents either maybe they had already left for Australia by that point.

The index of births registered in England and Wales for that period is somewhat misleading. Not all births were registered: it was compulsory, but fines were not issued for non-registration of children until the 1870s, and so some families, particularly non-conformists, didn't bother. However the only match for the right period in the right registration district would appear to be the one that Roy had already found in Jun quarter 1841, and my response to him was that should that birth that was registered turn out to be the son of Edward and Jane (which I got from the 1841 census), then it is very probably of his ancestor.

I was also able to give a possible date of marriage (1838) of his parents, and just in case a list of all John Paddocks whose deaths were registered in Shropshire between 1841 and 1851.

So all in all I have given my correspondant the tools to find out for himself whom his ancestor was. However at the end of my response is a request for him to submit research to me: I was only able to give him so much information because other people were kind enough to give me their family trees: my one-name study cannot succeed unless other people do likewise.

Tags: australia, ellesmere, paddock, request

For the first ever post to the Paddick One-Name Study Journal, I thought I would begin with a biography of the most important Paddick in my life, that is my grandad, Sidney Arthur Paddick.

Sidney was born on 21st March 1927 in Axbridge, Somerset, the youngest of nine children of William and Harriet Eliza (née VAUGHAN). He was named Sidney after his father's younger brother Sidney PADDICK (born in Stoke St Gregory, Somerset in 1889).



He was brought up in Bridgwater where his father worked as a shepherd. Of the many stories of Bridgwater that I have heard from that period, I find the most intriguing one to be the tales of the cider that the family used to brew in their garden shed. Where in "normal" families any waste from the kitchen or dining table would have gone in the pig bins or onto the compost heap, in my grandad's house it went into the cider vat. Vegetable scraps, left over food, anything of that kind got added to the cider. It was said to have "given it body". Then there was my grandad's story of what happened to rats that were caught in the shed. I'm sure you can use your imagination. Suffice to say that when my grandmother was told these stories she refused to try the cider she was offered, and hasn't touched it to this day. How to put someone off for life...

Another anecdote about my grandad's childhood was that his mother played the organ, and that he used to sit and listen to her playing as a small child. He had a favourite hymn, that was written in honour of his homeland Somerset. "Rock of Ages" was inspired by Cheddar Gorge, near where my grandad was brought up, and that became his favourite hymn for life. It was aa very fitting hymn to play at his funeral, after he died in December 2001.

When my grandad came of age he was conscripted into the army and went into training at Eythrope House in Buckinghamshire, which was at that time being used as an army camp. It was while in training at Eythrope that he met my grandmother. My grandad and his friend were out walking in the country when they had some time to themselves and came across two young girls blackberry picking in the hedgerow. Seeing that the two young women couldn't reach the high branches my grandad and his mate started teasing them and laughing at them; this eventually led to the two young men helping them and chatting to them. One of the young women was my grandmother, Sylvia Alexandra HAILEY, and on the 26th December 1946 Sidney and Sylvia were married at Walton Holy Trinity Church in Aylesbury.

Initially my grandparents moved down to Bridgwater where they lived in a nisson hut while my grandad (ever the industrious type) set about building his own house. It was while they were living in the nisson hut that their eldest son, my father Raymond Arthur PADDICK, was born in 1950.

One of the things my grandad became known for in addition to his work ethic and industriousness was his generous nature. It was down to this nature that my family's fortunes were changed forever in the early 1950s. On 3rd April 1951 my grandmother's older sister Dolly died, leaving ten children needing care. Rather than facing the inevitable split-up of the ten children my grandparents moved to Aylesbury to take on those children that they could manage so at least some stayed within the family. Of the ten, my grandparents looked after Pat, Brian, Eric, Gerald, Michael, Peter and Pamela. Heather and Celia were both adopted by other families and Edward (the eldest) was old enough to look after himself. It is somewhat understandable from this situation therefore, that my grandparents didn't have another child of their own until 1956 when my auntie Pauline was born, and that they were to have no more biological children of their own. However one of the important lessons I have learned from both my grandparents is that biology and blood only define a part of what a family is: if you bring up a child you have a right to treat that child as your own, and my grandparents did exactly that. I know Dolly's children as my own aunties and uncles.

In Aylesbury, Sidney found employment at Associated Alloys where he worked for a number of years. While working here however my grandparents found other ways of making money. One story my auntie Pam told me about the family's money-making streak, was that they used to buy in the various components of jewelery, and had a production line going round the kitchen table making jewelery to sell. That was just one in a list of money-making schemes my family took on, and one in particular went on to become my grandad's career and moment of fame. In 1971, he opened a fish and chip shop in Hampden Gardens in Aylesbury.

Grandad put everything into his business. Over time he opened up more shops because he found that running several shops together was more economic than individual people running the shops alone. No order was too big either. My grandmother told me of an order to take one thousand portions of fish and chips to the RAF camp up the road. They prepared and took the orders in lots of 250, but they managed it all. And the business really was a family business: my dad ran one of the shops, my mum helped my grandmother with the accounts, my brother and I both found our first jobs in the shop my dad ran, my grandmother's brother and sister-in-law worked in one of the shops: the enterprising streak ran deep in our family.

By the time my grandparents retired in 1991 they were very wealthy people, and so they should be: they put everything into making sure their business was a success. In retirement my grandfather found that his interests were mainly split two-fold: his garden and his grandchildren. He and my grandmother travelled while they could and saw the world, and they lived happily together in their large house in Aylesbury. And they really made an effort to keep the family together: their parties on Boxing Day each year are legendary, a tradition my grandmother is keen to keep up today.

Alas, as happens to us all, my grandad fell ill in 2001 and spent most of that year in hospital suffering from an arrangement of ailments. We believe he was waiting for his 55th wedding anniversary to see his family just one last time before he passed away: the day after Boxing Day in 2001 he refused to accept any visitors other than my grandmother, and on 29th December 2001, he died in the Florence Nightingale Hospice at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

At his funeral on 10th January 2002 at the same small church in which he had been married in 1946, there were so many people there were not enough seats for everyone, and many mourners were stood at the back of the church throughout the service. The funeral procession from there to the crematorium in Amersham stopped traffic because of its length. His ashes were buried the next day in Aylesbury Cemetery.



My grandad is chiefly remembered for serving the best fish and chips in Bucks, and was celebrated as such on many occasions throughout his career. I still get asked today if I am related to him, and if my family is still involved in the fish and chip business. I am proud to say to them that he was my grandad, and somewhat wistful of the fact that the answer to the second question is "no". Sidney may not have been the most famous Paddick that ever lived, however he is the most notable as far as I'm concerned.

Tags: aylesbury, biography, paddick, somerset