Padwick

It is reasonable to assume that this surname recorded as Padwick, Pattwick or Padwicke, comes from an English village so named. This is almost certainly the case, except that no village in any of the known spellings is to be found in the surviving gazetters of the British Isles going back three centuries. This suggests that either the place name spelling has changed to perhaps Paddock, a village on the outskirts of Huddersfield in Yorkshire or the similarly named Paddock Wood in Kent, and both deriving from the pre 7th century word 'parroc' meaning a fenced enclosure, or we are dealing with a now 'lost' medieval village of which the only reminder in the late 20th century is the surname itself. We belive that such a place did exist, and it probably translated as Padda's dairy farm, with Padda being an early personal name of the pre 7th century, and 'wic' a dairy farm. Gatwick for instance is the appropriately named Goat Farm, with Chiswick, the Cheese Farm. Early examples of the name recordings are those of John Padwick who married Judith Canley at St Giles Cripplegate, on July 27th 1630, and Herbert Padwick, who was christened at St Marks Kennington, both recordings in the city of London, on June 13th 1865.