[1][2][Note 1] He was baptized 26 January 1769 at the Oakshaw East Association Congregation, to parents Ebenezer Picken and Agnes Ingraham.
Picken was an only son, and his father gave him a good education at the Paisley Grammar School, with the intention he would enter the priesthood and join a body of Presbyterian Dissenters that he himself belonged to.
[7] Picken and his family lived in near poverty in Edinburgh, with his language tutoring and selling subscriptions to his poetry unable to generate sufficient income.
[9] Both women attempted to establish a boarding school in Musselburgh, Midlothian but had little success due to Joanna Picken's uncomplimentary satire of locals.
[11] Pickens' own dictionary, containing 5,000 words, was published posthumously and anonymously in 1818 by Edinburgh bookseller James Sawers, and it was through Jamieson's work that he was referenced as producing the definitions.
George Eyre-Todd notes that it was these works that reflect Picken's writing, and that his verse, and especially epistolary poetry, were mere echoes of Robert Burns.
Those gentlemen, therefore, who have encouraged the design, by subscribing for copies, may have some satisfaction in reflecting, that, while they are paying honour to departed worth, they are at the same time aiding a Man of Genius,—an unfortunate trader, but a respectable Poet.