pollecoff in pwllheli

[bykerlads]

( hope I'm in the right county with this )
I was wondering what the origins of the name Pollecoff were - I was visiting Pwllheli recently and was struck by the name, as in the ladies dress shop in the High Street.
It doesn't look very Welsh to me - is it perhaps a corruption of the Russian Poliekof/v?
I'd be interested to know.
PS- lovely shop- I bought a hat.
PPS- Pwllheli is such a very pleasant place to visit - many assets, not the least being several excellent, independently owned dress-shops!

[suzard]

On census there are Pollecoffs in Lancashire and Holyhead
Seems they were in Lancashire first
1901 census there is Solomon Pollecoff age 33 Occ Draper b Russia with wife and family
Most of the pollecoofs are b Russia and their wives too -children b UK.

1931 there is a Pollecoff birth reg in Pwllheli

Suz

[keyboard86]

Hi I have just been looking at a photograph of the store you visited by just entering Pollecoff in Google, along with the picture it states:-

The Pollecoffs were a number of East European Jews, which established thriving businesses in the market towns of North Wales.

Keyboard86

[pinot]

Pwllheli is actually in the old county of Caernarfonshire, which is now, like Merionethshire, part of the present county of Gwynedd. Pollecoffs also had branches in Blaenau Ffestiniog and Bangor, this latter taken over by Debenhams.
                        Pinot 

[Huwcyn]

There was a synagogue of sorts in Bangor at one time - it might have been in the  old Tabernacle chapel in the Garth area . I think the Pollecoffs were prominent there.
The book 'Bangor : a pictorial history ' by John Cowell shows a picture of Philip Pollecoff in front of his Bangor store , which is stated to have expanded in the 1920's from a drapers to a department store.
It also notes that his father was from the Ukraine.

[bykerlads]

Thanks for replies - interesting to see how the surname was modified, I wonder when and why this happened?

[pinot]

1901 census there is Solomon Pollecoff age 33 Occ Draper b Russia with wife and family
Most of the pollecoffs are b Russia and their wives too -children b UK.
Suz

It's not hard to imagine Solomon and his like being asked to spell his name by an immigration official; Pollecoff seems to be a a very fair approximation of what he would have heard. Moreover, it's lasted well. That's the why, I think; the when is another story . . .

[bykerlads]

Thanks Pinot- I've heard of such surname modifications being made by immigration officials on Ellis island wirh immigrants to the USA in the past.
This seems to have happened even with Uk census ennumerators as we will no doubt have all found during our family history researches.

[nainmaddie]

What a blast from the past !!!!!!

We spent many years visiting relatives every summer, between Porthmadog and the Lleyn.

I well remember shopping in that store in Pwllheli in the late 1940's and onwards.

Thanks for the memory

Maddie