William Hickey (memoirist)
William Hickey (
June 30,
1749 â€"
May 31,
1830), was a lawyer,
bon-viveur and general man about town, but is best-known for his vast
Memoirs, composed in 1808-10 and published between 1913 and 1925, which in their manuscript form cover seven hundred and forty closely-written pages. Described by Peter Quennell as "One of the most remarkable books of its kind ever published in the English Language", Hickey's
Memoirs give an extraordinarily vivid picture of life in late 18th-century
London,
Calcutta,
Madras and
Jamaica which stands comparison with the best of his near-contemporary
James Boswell.
Hickey was born in St. Albans Street,
Pall Mall,
Westminster, on the 30th June 1749, the seventh son of Joseph Hickey, a successful Irish Solicitor, and Mary Boulton, from a Yorkshire gentry family. He began his education at
Westminster School, but was removed "in high disgrace" in December 1763 after neglecting his studies, frequenting
public houses and leading, in his words, a life of "idleness and dissipation". Instead he was sent to a private school at
Streatham in
Surrey, where he was able to study Arithmetic, Writing, French, Drawing and Dancing in addition to the Classical Studies which had failed to engage him at Westminster. In January 1766 he left school and began his legal training, but he continued to lead an extremely debauched existence. In his old age Hickey wrote rather censoriously of his youthful indiscretions in London, where he lived well beyond his means, drinking and gambling heavily, playing at
billiards and at
cricket, and keeping a mistress called Nanny Harris, to whom he was very attached, in rooms in Berwick Street. Eventually he embezzled £500 (a considerable sum for those days) from the accounts in his father's office, and when this was discovered it was resolved to send the prodigal to India to see if he could make good. Accordingly Hickey embarked on the
Plassey, a fast Indiaman, at
Dungeness on the 4th January 1769.
First Return to England 1770-75
Jamaica 1776
Calcutta 1777-1780
England Again 1780-1782
Madras 1782-3
Calcutta 1783-1790
Wars and Disturbances 1790-1808
* Alfred Spencer (Ed.)
The Memoirs of William Hickey (London: Hurst & Blackett) 1913-25, 4 Vols.
* Peter Quennell (Ed.)
The Memoirs of William Hickey (London: Hutchinson) 1960
