Born at Clunes in Victoria on 22 May 1859, William was the fourth child of Henry Hickmott and Harriet Waters. He would have spent his childhood at Clunes before moving with his parents and siblings to Maryborough in Victoria in 1871 and, in the following year, to Charlton East where he would have worked as a brickmaker at his father's brickyard on Olive Street. As he was not mentioned in the reports of his mother's death by lightning strike in 1877, we can surmise that he left Charlton some time before this date in order to make his own way in life.

We think that he may have initially gone to Queensland where he met his first wife Mary Power. Mary was born at Condamine in Queensland in 1867, the daughter of John Baptist Power and Maria Jane Kelly. John hailed from London while his wife, Maria, was born in County Kildare in Ireland. They were married in Brisbane in 1856 and had had five children prior to Mary: John, George, Michael, Alfred and a female who had died at birth.

According to one of their descendants, Rita Wilson (nee Dunstan), William and Mary had two children in New South Wales - Mary Ann Hickmott who was born at Woorona near Wollongong in 1886, and Alice Maud Hickmott (born at Liverpool in 1889). They then moved to Gippsland in Victoria where their next four children were born: Emily Victoria Hickmott (in Murrindale in 1890), twin sons John and William Hickmott (Bruthven, 1893) and William Henry Hickmott (Bruthven, 1894). Emily's birth certificate states that her parents had been married in Brisbane in 1885. Yet Rita has discovered that they were (re)married in the Vestry of the Roman Catholic Church (pictured on the right) in Roma in Queensland on 25 September 1896. She thinks that they were probably not married in Brisbane but said they were to cover any embarrassment when they met up with William's family.

After spending five years in Victoria, William and Mary returned to Queensland where they had a further daughter, Maria Harriet Lillian Hickmott, who was born at Roma in 1897 and was named after her two grandmothers. Within five years of their arrival at Roma, the unfortunate couple lost both their twin sons and the boys' older brother, William Henry. All are buried in unmarked graves at the Roma cemetery. The boys were joined not not long afterwards by their mother, Mary Hickmott (nee Power) who died in Roma of bronchial asthma on 26 January 1901. She was just 32 years old. Rita adds that Mary's mother, Maria, is buried close by in the same cemetery.

William was left to bring up his four daughters by himself. In 1909 he married Kate Elizabeth Eaton (pictured with William on the left) at Yuleba some 20 km east of Roma. Kate had been born at Roma on 11 March 1888, the second daughter of Samuel Eaton/Heaton and Mary Ann O'Laughlin. Information provided by Barbara Andersen and Mary-Ann Wheatley indicates that Samuel's life was both very interesting and very hard. He was born at Pemberton in Lancashire in England on 30 September 1824. His parents were Henry Heaton and Elizabeth Blinston. On 21 August 1841 he enlisted at Wigan in the 23rd Regiment of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and was posted to London in Canada. His service record shows he was 5 feet 8 inches tall with a sallow complexion, brown hair and brown eyes. On 5th May 1846, Samuel, together with a James Shenton, went absent without leave. He was quickly apprehended and court martialed at Chambly in Canada on 23 May 1846. Samuel was found guilty of desertion and sentenced to transportation to Australia for 10 years. He left on the 'Mount Stewart Elphinstone' which sailed from Canada's Spithead on 31 May 1849 and arrived in Moreton Bay at Brisbane on 1 November 1849.

Samuel was granted a Ticket of Leave (No 49/892) on 30 November 1849, a mere 29 days after his arrival. The next record of him is on 2 May 1855 when he was imprisoned in Ipswich Gaol. Barbara Andersen says that although no details of the case are available, it seems that the charges made against him were dismissed and he was released after 14 days in custody. His occupation was given as a miner. It was around this time that Samuel met and married Ellen Bullens who had arrived at Brisbane on 13 August 1852 on the bounty ship 'Meridan'. The ship had come from Tipperary in Ireland, and Ellen was accompanied by her father William (40), mother Ellen (38) and siblings Edward (13), Patrick (10), Mary (8) and Anora (6). Barbara continues that Ellen's death certificate and other information indicates that they were married at Undullah, Teviot Brook sometime between 1852 and 1855.

In 1882, Samuel and Ellen together with their son Henry, his wife Anne and daughter Annie drove a bullock team out west to Adavale Station (a distance of over 800kms). Samuel and Henry worked as carriers and it is thought the purpose of their trip was to transport wool from Adavale back to Charleville. Samuel's wife Ellen died of heart problems in Charleville on 10th April 1883. Henry's wife, Annie Coulson, gave birth to twins, William and Ellen, on 11 September 1883 at Adavale Station. Sadly baby Ellen died two days later from convulsions. Less than 12 months later, on 21 August 1884, Henry's wife Anne also died at Adavale Station. She was just 23 years old.

Samuel and Henry returned to Rosewood with Henry's two small children (Annie aged 4 and baby William aged 14 months). Five months after their return, Henry died on 17 January 1885 from apoplexy. He was 28. Now orphans, Annie and William were cared for by their grandparents, George and Anne Coulson. Samuel eventually returned to the Charleville area where he married Ann Mary O'Laughlin on 16 Sept 1885 at Aesthimann's Hotel. Samuel's son, Richard John, was a witness to the wedding. Samuel and Ann Mary had two daughters: Norah, born at Yuleba on 3 July 1886, and Kate Elizabeth, born on 11 March 1888 at Roma. According to Barbara: 'A couple of years after his marriage to Ann Mary, Samuel was once again in trouble with the law. He appeared in the Charleville courts four times between 1887 and 1890 for drunkenness and disorderly conduct (26 July 1887, 28 July 1887, 27 November 1890 and 3 December 1890)'.

Samuel was admitted to the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum on 18 December 1894 with general debility. His admission form states that he came to Australia 43 years earlier, had landed in Moreton Bay, worked on stations in all parts of Queensland, and had never left the colony. For the last 2 years he worked at odd jobs about Adavale. Samuel had no money and no property. He went on leave from Dunwich on 20 March 1895 and never returned (he was recorded as 'beyond leave' on the asylum records on 21 June 1895). The family has found no record of Samuel's death. It is known that he died before 1903 as his wife Ann Mary remarried on 30 March 1903 and states on her marriage certificate that she was a widow. Norah Eaton married James Nean (born 6 March 1862 in Dalby in Queensland) on 3 July 1904 at Miles in Queensland.

After her marriage in 1909, Kate Elizabeth Eaton lived with William Hickmott until his death at Helidon in Queensland on 27 November 1948. They had at least six children, all born in Queensland: Edward (1908-1958), William John (1910-1988), Veronica Eileen (1911-), Henry (1913-1978), Cecil James (1916-1991) and Lorna May (1918-1922). Following William's death, Kate married August Behrendorff. She died at Helidon in Queensland in 1960.

What of William and Mary's children? We know little of the lives of Mary Ann and Alice Maud Hickmott. Rita Wilson tells us that Emily Victoria Hickmott, Rita's grandmother, married Cornelius O'Leary, in Dalby in Queensland in 1907. Cornelius, born at Glen Innes in New South Wales in 1884, was the son of John and Mary Ann O'Leary (nee Ellis). They had eleven children between 1907 and 1933 in such places at Chinchilla, Ingham, Townsville and Cairns, including Rita's mother, Connie O'Leary, who married Robert Henry Dunstan in Cairns in 1939. Connie and Robert and their three girls, Vicki, Denise and Rita, are shown in the photo on the left. The photo below, taken in around 1938, shows a younger Connie with her seven sisters).

Rita thinks that Emily's younger sister, Maria Harriet Lillian Hickmott was the only one of William's daughters who was brought up by her stepmother, Kate. Maria married Charles Jackson Sheppard and had at least one daughter, Audrey, who, Rita says, remembers William 'as a wonderful old gentleman'. By contrast, 'none of the children of Emily have ever mentioned their grandparents - my own mother told me not many years before she passed away in 2001 that as children growing up they had little to do with either side of their families. [This may have been because] Cornelius and Emily [who was married at 17] took their familiy to north Queensland and in those days that was a long way from Chinchilla, Dalby and the Toowoomba areas'.

Last updated: 18 October 2006