Descendants of
John Hickmott and Ann Russell
of Lamberhurst
(last updated 23 January 2012)
John Hickmott was the third son of the yeoman farmer Thomas
Hickmott (1651-c1714) and his wife Mary Masters (1648- ). He was born in
Horsemonden in Kent in 1684 and married Ann Russell in East Farleigh in Kent in
1713. Ann, whose parents were Stephen and Anne Russell, was born in Horsmonden
in 1697. Following his fatherÕs death in 1714, John was given sole access to
eighty acres of land known as the ÔKettlesÕ, as well as joint access to two allotments
known as Castoins Field and the Great Tutchburys. All were located in the
vicinity of Lamberhurst (see Wendy BeckettÕs website for the full text of
ThomasÕ will). This led John and his family to move, in around 1722, from
Horsemonden where they were then living to Lamberhurst where their remaining
children were baptised and where both John and Ann eventually died and were
buried (in 1750 and 1754 respectively). The couple seem to have had twelve
children altogether: Susan, John, Thomas, Ann, Joseph, William, Russell,
Richard, Mary, Timothy and two Elizabeths. To date we have been able to follow,
to varying degrees, the lives and times of only three of these and their
families and descendants: John, Thomas and Russell.
What follows is a description of some of the members of these three lines of the family, together with a brief overview of where they went to and what they did. A full list of John and AnnÕs known descendants, and information about them gleaned from census and other sources, is contained on my Hickmott Rootsweb site. A number of other researchers have written more extensively about some of the families involved. IÕve included links to these works at appropriate places in the text (please let me know if I havenÕt included your site). A key source for all three lines, of course, is Dawn MilesÕ groundbreaking ÔHickmotts of LamberhurstÕ web site.
John Hickmott moved to
Lamberhurst (shown on the left) from Horsmonden with his parents and siblings in around 1722. While we have not yet established whether they were married (or are buried) at Lamberhurst, we do know that John and Mary's eight children were all baptised there: James (1737), Lydia (1742), William (1744), John (1746), Ruth (1749), Susannah (1752), Russell (1756) and Edward (1762). To date we know further details of only three of these: Lydia, John and James.
John and Mary's eldest eldest daughter Lydia Hickmott married a local man, Richard Latter, at Lamberhurst in 1773 and had six children there - Ann Elizabeth Hickmott (before she was married) and Isaac, Rose, Kezia, Eve and Virgil Latter. One of these, Rose Hickmott, Geoff Underhill tells us, married into his ancestral family and has descendants currently living in Tunbridge Wells and London. John and Mary's son John Hickmott junior married Sussanah Sales at Brenchley in 1777 and had three children there we know of: Susannah (baptised in 1778), John (1781) and William (1783).
The Hickmott clan was beginning to spread. We can see this more clearly when we look at the family and descendants of John and Mary's eldest son James Hickmott (1737-1830), about whom we now have a deal of information, and his wife Mary (1729-1814). While they seem not to have been married at Lamberhurst we know they lived all their lives and had all of their children there: James (baptised there in 1761), John (1763), William (1766), Thomas (1769), Elizabeth (1771), Lydia (1773) and, we think, Ruth (1775). What follows is an account of four of these and some of their descendants.
John Hickmott (1763-1854) and Sarah Bailey (1761-1831)
John's will, made out in 1853 and proved the following year, indicates that he was the postmaster at Lamberhurst and he owned property and land including land near Coursley Wood in the parish of Wadhurst. He had married Sarah Bailey at Lamberhurst in 1792 and had five children there: James (who married Sarah Ticehurst from Dallington), Martha (who never married), Elizabeth (Thomas Pierce), Harriet (George Farley) and Sarah (George Unknown). Some of these and their families continued to live at Lamberhurst while others went elsewhere. James and Sarah and their family, for example, moved to Cranbrook where they worked mainly as agricultural labourers and brick makers and layers. Harriet and George Farley, who worked as a farm bailif, were at different times in Berkshire and Middlesex. John Vidler Hickmott, the illegitimate son of John and Sarah's youngest daughter Sarah, travelled much further afield. Baptised at Lamberhurst in 1820, he married Sarah Maria Buss in the Maidstone registration district of Kent in 1845. Like his grandfather and uncle John, he initially worked as a postmaster, at Staplehurst during the 1850s. Sometime after 1861 he and his wife and daughter Ann left Britain for the United States where we understand he became the Reverend John Vidler Hickmott of Steubenville, Pleasant Creek in Indiana.
Another family of Hickmotts to emigrate to the United States was that of John Hickmott and Mary Potter who were married at Horsmonden in 1815. Although still to be confirmed, we think that John was the illegitimate son of John Hickmott and Sarah Bailey of Lamberhurst and that he grew up with Sarah's family in Horsmonden where he had been born in 1791. John and Mary lived at Horsmonden after their marriage and had six children there: William (1816), who married Jane Hall at Horsmonden in 1741, Sarah (1819-43), Mary (1821), Stephen (1823), Sophia (1827) who married James Nye at Horsmonden in 1849, and James (1830). Nancy Rivers' Hickmott family tree on Rootsweb indicates that John and Mary and their surviving children emigrated to the United States in around 1854 and settled in Michigan. John died in Michigan in 1878. His wife Mary had earlier died there in 1863. They are both buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Pontiac in Michigan. Their eldest son, William, died in Michigan in 1896. His wife, Jane, had died at sea during their voyage from England, probably from the effects of giving birth to the couple's youngest daughter Mary Louise Hickmott.
Nancy continues that William's younger brother, Stephen Hickmott, married Eliza Powell at Michigan in around 1865, and had six children all born at New Haven Township, Shiawassee County in Michigan: Melvin (1864-1926), Frank (1866-1949), William (1869-1955), James (1871-72), Frederick Stephen (1874-1960) and Bert Hickmott (1877-1932) who married Anna Wortman (1876-1914) in New Haven on 22 August 1900. Their sister Sophia Nye and her husband, James, lived in Oakland County in Michigan and had six children there: John (1851-1910), Frances (1854), Ellen (1857), Franklin (1859-1901), James (1863-1928) and Edward. James died in 1873 and Sophia re-married, to John McKinistry at Pontiac in Michigan in 1880. She died at West Bloomfield in Michigan on 9 April 1915 and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery near her parents. John and Mary's youngest son, James, married Cecilia M. White at Pontiac in around 1864 and had 10 children there: Fred Wellington (1865-1942), Leon James (1867-82), Elmer John (1871-1954), Amelia Frances (1873-1946), Mary E. (1875-1958), Margaret Addie (1878-82), Ralph James (1882-1960), Bertha Grace (1884-1961), Grace bertha (1884-1961) and Harry Hickmott (1886-1946). James died at Pontiac in Michigan in 1900 and is also buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery.
William Hickmott (1766-1844) and Elizabeth Mace (-1843)
William and Elizabeth were married at Horsmonden in 1789. They lived first at Horsmonden and later at Marden where William was a yeoman farmer. His last will and testament indicates that he owned property in the vicinity of Horsmonden. He and Elizabeth had three sons, all born at Horsmonden: William (1791), John (1795) and Thomas (1797). The local parish registers show that a William Hickmott married Mary Cheeseman at Marden in 1815. Another (or conceivably the same) William Hickmott married Sarah Grigsby at Marden in 1836. The censuses indicate that this William was born at Marden in around 1787 and that he and Sarah continued, after their marriage, to live at Marden where William worked as an agricultural labourer.
The slight discrepancy in birth dates together with the fact that on his death, William senior left his property to his two younger sons, suggests that William junior may have died before 1844 although this has still to be confirmed. Another possibility that also needs to be confirmed is that William was transported. The transportation records contained on Ancestry's website include a William Hickmott who was convicted at the Sussex Assizes on 30 July 1831 and transported to Australia for life. Born in around 1790 William was transported on the Asia which sailed from England on 29 September 1831 and arrived at Sydney early in 1832. The records further show he was assigned to a W. Lithgow at Goulburn. The NSW bdms indicate that a William Hickmott married Mary Palmer in the 'MC' district of the colony in 1840.
William and Elizabeth's second son, John Hickmott, seems to have had at least eight children before he was widowed some time before 1841 (it is possible that some of these were in fact the children of his older brother William): Henry (born at Marden in 1817), Sarah (1819), Thomas (1820), William (1822), Caleb (1825), Lewis (1828), Robert (1830) and Edward (1832). Sometime between the time of the 1841 and 1851 censuses John took up with his young (and widowed) housekeeper, Elizabeth Baker, and fathered (or adopted) her three youngest children: George Frederick (born at Marden in 1844), Walter (1846) and Caroline (1848).
Again while some members of this extended family remained in and around Marden, others moved away from the district. John's son, Lewis Hickmott, for example, went to live at Kimberworth in Yorkshire where he had married a local girl, and worked as a grocer and tea dealer. Following his premature death in 1859, the business was run by Lewis' wife, Mary, who was assisted by her brothers-in-law Caleb and Edward Hickmott. According to The Hickmott Page, Edward had earlier emigrated to the United States, but returned after hearing of his brother's death. Caleb eventually moved to Bermondsey in London where he and another brother, Robert Hickmott, worked as hop dealers. Edward married Rebecca Dawes at Rotherham in Yorkshire in 1872 and lived at Rotherham in a house they named 'Marden'. According to the 'Hickmott Page' referred to above, they had three children, all born at Rotherham: Florence (born in 1875), Mabel (1876) and Harold Edward Hickmott (1882). The website of Janet Croft, informs us that in his later years, Edward was an alderman on the Rotherham City Council and in that capacity laid the foundation stone of Rotherham's Badsley Moor Lane Hospital. As Janet's account describes, prior to the stone-laying
... there was a little ceremony that gave great delight to those assembled. Alderman Hickmott was asked ... to accept a silver trowel with an ivory handle and a mallet to match. On the blade of the trowel the following inscription is engraved 'County Borough of Rotherham - Presented to Alderman Edward Hickmott, JP, by Mr. J. Platts architect and Mr. W. Thornton, contractor upon the laying of the foundation stone of the Isolation Hospital, 28th July 1904' ... Mr. Hickmott was greeted with applause ... [and] proceeded to make a lengthy speech ... [before laying] the foundation stone. Mr Hickmott was the chairman of the Public Health Committee and had taken a most active interest in the whole procedure. Afterwards members of the Corporation and officials returned to town in their open horse-drawn carriages. They were entertained to tea in one of the upper rooms of the Technical Institute. In jubilant spirits a meal was enjoyed followed by a few toasts [where] Alderman Hickmott, asked the company to drink to the health of His Majesty the King Edward VII, the eldest son of Queen Victoria.
Thomas Hickmott (1769-1854) and Elizabeth Whibley (1766-1837)
Thomas and Elizabeth were married at Lamberhurst in 1788 and had twelve children there between the year of their marriage and 1807. These included Samuel Hickmott who, together with his older brother Thomas, was transported to Tasmania in 1840 (Samuel's youngest son, Henry Hickmott, began the Australian line of the family). Click here to read more about Thomas and Elizabeth and their other children.
While still to be confirmed, we now think that one of Samuel and Thomas's cousins, James Hickmott, the illegimate son of Thomas and Elizabeth's daughter, Mary Hickmott, also emigrated to Australia. According to one of his Australian descendants, Marilyn Mason, James was born in Lamberhurst in around 1809 and married Sarah Clark(e) there in 1835. Marilyn continues that James and Sarah and their son Thomas sailed from Gravesend on the emigrant ship the MAITLAND which arrived at Sydney Cove on 6 November 1838. Because some of its passengers had scarlet and typhoid fever, the ship was placed into quarantine at Spring Cove where it remained for 23 days. After their release, the family eventually moved to Portland Head and then to Sackville Reach on the Hawkesbury river where James worked as an agricultural labourer. While there they had two further children: Mary Ann (born in 1846) and James (1848). They later moved to Burrendong where James and Sarah died and were buried in 1881 and 1886 respectively.
Lydia Hickmott (1773-1808) and Edward Jeffery (1765-1849)
John Vidler, Thomas, Samuel and James Hickmott were not the only members of this line of the family to leave England's shores. Another emigrant was another of Thomas and Samuel's first cousins, William Jeffery (1808-c1855), who with his wife Mary Ann Martin (1810-1876) and their two girls, Harriet and Mary Ann, sailed from England to Australia in 1838 (they left behind two younger girls who had died young and were buried at Brenchley). William was the youngest son of Edward Jeffery (1765-1849) and Lydia Hickmott (1773-1808) who were married at Brenchley in 1790 and had eight children in addition to William (these included Alice Jeffery whose descendants included Samuel and Walter Herbert Reader and their families who farmed at Marden and Chevening respectively).
According to one of their Australian descendants, Christine Parish, William and Mary Ann Jeffery left England on the barque the LADY NUGENT which sailed from Gravesend to Sydney, arriving there onÊ27th November 1838. Christine continues that the couple had four more children in Australia, Edward, Jane Sophia, Charles Henry and Martha Charlotte, at such places as Richmond, Hartley and the Gulgoa station at Condobolin. William died in outback New South Wales sometime between 1851 and 1857. In 1863 his wife Mary Ann married John Murray, a farmer from Ploughmans Creek, at BathurstÊon 8th September 1863. John was a widower who came originally from County Mayo in Ireland.ÊThey had no children. Mary Murray nee Jeffery nee Martin diedÊfrom ovarian cancer at Orange in New South Wales on 28 April 1876. She was 65 years old.
Christine's great great grandmother, Harriet Jeffery, married Thomas Horner Stone at Spring Grove in New South Wales in 1845. Thomas 'was born around 1808/1809, somewhere in Middlesex'.Ê He was tried at the Old Bailey at 'about nine-thirty on the evening of 28 May 1831 ... [after being] caught red-handed with a large basket of silk and made up silk velvetÊfrom the shop of William Barrett Snr and Jnr.ÊHis companion in crime escaped.ÊThomas was originallyÊsentenced to death, but ended up with life transportation to Australia ... He arrived on the ASIA (6), which left Portsmouth on 16 October 1831 and arrived in New South Wales on 13 February 1832'. It seems the sixteen year-old bride had already had her first child, at Cox's Creek in 1844. She and Thomas had a further fifteen children between 1845 and 1874, many of whom lived, married and are buried at or around Condobolin in New South Wales.
Another family descendant, Owen Ormsby from New Zealand, informs us that yet another grandson of Edward and Lydia, Edward Jeffery, and his wife Louisa Fuller and their six surviving children, emigrated from England to New Zealand in 1874. They left London on the AVALANCHE on 22 October 1874 and arrived at New Plymouth in New Zealand, 'the first immigrant ship to call there in 20 years', on 21 January 1875. Owen continues that the family settled in the New Plymouth area where many of their descendants can still be found. He adds that 'the Hickmott line is strong through my family in that our ancestress Lydia is recognised and accounted for in our family stories. I think Lydia would be pleased to see her descendants in New Zealand as lawyers, police, nurses, doctors and academics as well as farmers, trades people and good hard workers, men and women committed to their families and social obligations'.
Ruth Hickmott (1775-1864) and William Boorman (1772-1853)
Ruth and William were married at Lamberhurst in 1793 and, according to Nigel Masters, lived at Lamberhurst 'in a double story brick and tile cottage known as "Yew Tree Farm"'. Nigel continues that one of their sons, James Boorman (1806-1899) and his wife Jane Beaumont Watts (1813-1886) - the daughter of Concemore and Ann Watts, hop growers of Staplehurst in Kent, and descendant of the hymnwriter and theologian Isaac Watts - also emigrated to New South Wales under the bounty scheme. They left Plymouth on the sailing ship MOFFATT on 23 January 1841 and arrived at Sydney on 31 May. With them were their two sons William (aged 4) and Thomas (2). The couple were sent to the Hunter River to work for a local squatter for six months. They then leased a farm at Bloomfield's Swamp near West Maitland before moving, in 1844, to Bolwarra where James acted as the superintendant of the local Sunday School.
Nigel continues that James' nephew, David Doust, and his wife Mary Waters emigrated to Australia from Liverpool on the ADMIRAL LYONS on 25 September 1858, arriving at Sydney on 29 December the same year. After spending a few days with Mary's uncle at Surrey Hills, they travelled via steamer to Newcastle and then on to Bolwarra where David began working for his uncle. In 1861 the couple and their first son Rueben moved with James and his family to the Clarence River near Grafton. David later described this early experience there as follows:
The land was rich and heavily laden with fine timber; white people were scarce, but the natives and mosquitoes were in great numbers. There was neither hut nor home, so with that dauntless determination for which old pioneers are deservedly praised, we set about building. For weeks we had to camp, 10 in number, on bags of straw on the earthen floor.
According to Nigel, David eventually ran two farms in the area, one of which was named 'Bayham' after Bayham Abbey and estate near Lamberhurst. On retirement he lived at different times at Grafton, Chatswood in Sydney, and Belligen in northern New South Wales. Most of his siblings and cousins, meanwhile, remained in England, living and working in and around Lamberhurst and the adjoining village of Wadhurst where they worked mainly as husbandmen and agricultural labourers.
The surnames of those we know who married into this line of the Hickmotts include: Ahon, Aikman, Alexander, Apps, Austin, Ayres, Bailey, Baldwin, Ballinger, Balzary, Barry, Bartley, Bassett, Beecher, Betts, Bissel, Blackman, Blake, Bocking, Boorman, Boromeo, Bowden, Bowron, Boyne, Brett, Bridges, Brown, Brooke, Brooks, Bugden, Burton, Capon, Carpenter, Carter, Champion, Chandler, Chapman, Cheeseman, Cheesman, Clark, Clear, Clifton, Cockram, Collins, Colman, Cook, Cooke, Cornwall nee Fuller, Corsten, Crowhurst, Cullen, Cumine, Curnow, Dale, Dartnall, Davidson, Davis, Day, Dean, Nean nee Warner, Deans, Dellow, Dew, Dickens, Diplock, Dodson, Doherty, Doody, Doust, Dowling, Dudeney, Eaton, Edgson, Edwards, Elliott, Emmerson, Endicott, Fell, Ferguson, Fidge, Finch, Fisher, Fitzgerald, Flanner, Foreman, Free, French, Froud, Fuller, Gamble, Gammon, Gardiner, Gates, Gattenhof, Gerecke, Gibb, Gill, Goldsmith, Goodwin, Graham, Grayling, Greener, Groves, Guinan, Heusler, Hahnel, Harrington, Harris, Hart, Hatridge, Haycraft, Heath, Hicks, Higgins, Hitch, Hobbs, Holden, Holdsworth, Holland, Hollingworth, Hooker, Hudson, Hughes, Igguiden, Inge, Ireland, Ivers, Jackson, Jeffrey, Jenkyn, Jenner, Johnson, Jupe, Kaponica, Kaye (nee Sartain), Keir, Kellet, Kerr, Killen, Killick, King, Kitchenham, Knowles, Krause, Kyle, Lacey, Lane, Langley, Latter, Lawrence, Ledger, Lee, Leppard, Lewis, Loder, Lucas, Lynch, Mace, Margetts, Marsh, Martin, Mason, McDonald, McDougal, McKay, McLean, McLeod, Messer, Miles, Milkins, Millar, Mitchell, Moore, Morris, Mortze, Muellen, Munn, Munro, Nalder, Nash, Neave, Noblet, Norborn, Oaten, O'Leary, Osborne, Over, Owen, Paine, Palmer, Parkes, Pearson, Pender, Pickup, Pierce, Pilcher, Piper, Power, Price, Prince, Pryse, Ray, Reader, Richardson, Ring, Roberts, Rochester, Rogers, Rose, Rowe, Rumens, Russell, Ryde, Sales, Sampson, Saunders, Sayer, Sayers, Shaddock, Shawcross, Shellard, Short, Skeats, Skinner, Smart, Smith, Spence, Spice, Stowell, Swan, Swift, Sylvia, Taylor, Tester, Thompson, Ticehurst, Tippel, Tolhurst, Tomset, Torney, Tucker, Tuena, Turner, Tutbury, Underhill, Warland, Warner, Waters, Watt, Watts, Weatherhog, Weeden, Weekes, Weise, Weller, Wenborne, Wenbourne, Wenham, Whitington, Wibley, Willder, Williams, Wingate, Winter and Wisdom (the names that are italicised have descendants of their own).
Married in Lamberhurst in 1746 Thomas and Elizabeth had seven children there: Nathaniel, John, Thomas, Richard, Joseph, Elizabeth and Sarah Hickmott. We know nothing about John, Richard and Elizabeth Hickmott beyond their dates and palces of birth. We believe that Thomas Hickmott married Sarah Lawrence at Lamberhurst on 12 June 1768 and his sister Sarah married John Clifton at Brenchley two years later.
We do know more about Thomas and Elizabeth's eldest son Nathaniel Hickmott. Born at Lamberhurst in 1746, he first married Grace Swift, who was born at Wadhurst in 1748, after banns at Wadhurst on 2 July 1769. Both were said to have been 'of Wadhurst' and both signed the wedding certificate. The marriage was witnessed by John Rochester and John Swift. The monumental inscriptions for Lamberhurst show that Grace, then aged 50 years, died there on 27 February 1798, and that she 'left issue two sons and 5 daughters'. We only know of four of these: Elizabeth; Nathaniel; Priscilla and Richard Hickmott ( who was born at Lamberhurst in 1786) as follows:
Elizabeth Hickmott and Robert Smith
According to Mandy Willard, Elizabeth married Robert Smith at Wadhurst on 1 April 1793. She and Robert had three children - Richard, Richard and William - all of whom were born at Wadhurst (William married Ansley Killick at Rotherfield in 1821).
Nathaniel Hickmott (1778-1859) and Mary Tomset (1778-1824)
Born at Lamberhurst in 1778, Nathaniel married Mary Tomset at the local parish church there on 25 December 1802. The wedding was witnessed by William Hunt and John Cooper. They had seven children we know of - William, Mary Ann, Edward, Priscilla, Thomas, George and Henry Hickmott - between 1803 and 1819. Parish Chest records collected by Dawn Miles show that during the period 1819 to 1820, Nathaniel was granted such parish relief as shoes and half boots, flour, kiln brush and faggots by the Lamberhurst Parish Chest. Mary Hickmott nee Tomset died at Lamberhurst on 18 July 1824. Ten years later, Nathaniel (by then widowed and 57 years old) was resident in Lamberhurst's Poor House with his youngest son Henry (13). The 1841 census has a Nathaniel Hickmott, aged 62, in the Ticehurst Union Workhouse. At the time of the 1851 census, Nathaniel (a widowed pauper) was living at Bartley House in Wadhurst with his eldest son William and his family. Nathaniel died at Wadhurst in 1859 and was buried at Lamberhurst. He was 81 years old.
What of their children? The parish chest records sighted by Dawn Miles shows that their youngest son, Henry Hickmott, was in the Lamberhurst Poor House with his father in 1834. We haven't been able to trace him with any certainty after that. We think that Henry's brother Edward Hickmott (1809-43) did not marry. Their sister, Priscilla Hickmott (1812-1900) also did not marry. The UK censuses show that she lived first with her aunt and uncle, Isaac and Priscilla Pearson (nee Hickmott), at Rede in Suffolk, and then with her brother William and his family at Dodhurst Farm near Pembury in Kent (see below). After William's death in 1888, she lived on parish relief at Hawkenbury until her own death in 1900. The censuses also show that another sibling, Richard Hickmott (1808-91), who worked as a carter and lived all his life at Pembury, married (possibly to Anne Moon at Wadhurst in 1831 although this has still to be confirmed) but had no children.
One of her descendants, Kelly Smith, tells us that Mary Ann Hickmott (1805-92) married George Kemp (1801-87) at Hawkhurst in Kent in 1832 after she had lived with him for the previous ten years and had borne him two children. George and Mary Ann had altogether eight children all born at Hawkhurst: William (born in 1824), Edward (1828), Priscilla (1833), George (1836), Jesse (1838), Isaac (1840), Jude (1843) and David Kemp (1845-1921). Kelly continues that her great grandfather, David Kemp, married Mercy Crouch (1848-1940) at Frittenden and had fourteen children (shown with their parents in the photo below). The couple and their children lived 'firstly in Hawkhurst, then Frittenden, then Boughton Monchelsea...[and] finally in Rochester, Kent which strangely is where I still live'. She adds that all but one of the children lived their whole lives in Kent (the family believes that one of the boys emigrated to the United States although they are not sure which one). Details of the Kemps and their ancestors can be viewed on Kelly's 'Rogers/Ellmer & More Family Tree' on Ancestry.com.
Sent to us by Kelly Smith, this photo, thought to be taken in around 1910, is of
David and Mercy Kemp (nee Crouch) and their 14 children all of whom lived long lives:
David (born in 1867), Grace (1869), John (1871), George (1873), Jesse (1875), Balty (1877),
Albert (1880), Delce (1882), Margaret (1884), Kate (1886 - Kelly's great grandmother),
Frederick (1888), Harry (1890), Rose (1893) and Frank Kemp (1896).William Hickmott (1803-1888) married Charity Baldwin (1812-1889) from Wadhurst at Lamberhurst on 5 April 1831. They had four children we know of: an unnamed infant who died at birth at Lamberhurst in 1831, William Hickmott (born at Lamberhurst in 1832), Mary Hickmott (Lamberhurst, 1834) and Priscilla Hickmott (Wadhurst, 1842) At the time of the 1851 census, William, who was then working as a labourer, was living at Bartley House in Wadhurst with his wife Charity, daughter Priscilla, Charity's widowed mother, Hannah Baldwin (born in 1779 in Gloucestershire), and William's father Nathaniel Hickmott (a widowed pauper). Subsequent censuses show William as a tenant farmer. In 1861 his farm of 8 acres was at Newland Fields in Wadhurst and he was employing Charity's 63 year-old unmarried brother, William Baldwin, as an agricultural labourer. Sometime after this he moved onto the 109-acre Dodhurst Farm at Pembury. In 1871 he was employing four men and two boys and was living on the farm with his wife Charity, his sister Priscilla and three servants (they were still there in 1881). The Catherine House Records show a William Hickmott, aged 85, was buried in the district of Ticehurst in the December quarter of 1888 (vol 2b, page 67). His wife, Charity Hickmott nee Baldwin died the following year.
One of his descendants, John Taylor, tells us that Thomas Hickmott (1815-59) married Charlotte Bones (1825-55), the daughter of John and Elizabeth Bones, at Wadhurst in Sussex on 1 December 1844. He adds that 'Charlotte died on 5 June 1855, the cause of death recorded as "Consumption", today more commonly known as tuberculosis or TB. She was buried at Lamberhurst on 10 June 1855. Thomas was accidently killed by being crushed by a threshing machine on 26 July 1859. He was buried on 29 July 1859'. Thomas and Charlotte had three children: 1) Eliza Hickmott (1845-1933) who married Alfred William Meryett at Poplar in London in 1890 and had no children; 2) Esther Hickmott (1846-85) who never married; and 3) Edward Hickmott (1851-95).
John informs us that Edward married Mary Ann Hampingstall Humfrey, the daughter of John Hampingstall and Mary Ann Humfrey (nee Barber) at the Church of St Nicholas in Great Yarmouth on 6 November 1876. By this time Edward was working as a fisherman and was living at Gorleston. Between 1883 and 1886 he ran his own fishing vessel, the James and Robert, but later worked for the Short Blue Fleet where he served as skipper of the Yarmouth-registered fishing trawler Proserpine. Sadly, he and his 13 year-old son Henry Hampingstall Hickmott were drowned at sea during a 'ferocious storm which hit the North Sea during the first week of December 1895 and caught many of Yarmouth's fishing vessels out at sea'. John has used newspaper reports of the time to give us a sense of the gathering tragedy for both the local community and Mary Ann as they waited at the harbour and watched for the return of their loved ones:... [On Tuesday 10 December there were] Three vessels moored to the Gorleston quay each having lost one member of crew, and another smack, which had on board the crew of a vessel that had been abandoned. Other vessels arrived in a damaged condition on Wednesday, and again a crew who had been rescued from their vessel which was left sinking ... [by the following Tuesday] only the Johnny Tool and the Proserpine were stated to be missing ... [Then] news of the arrival at the fleet of the former was subsequently received, leaving only the Proserpine unaccounted for, and much alarm is now expressed about her ... [this alarm grew with the return of a skipper who reported] that on the Sunday during the gale, he descried a vessel with both masts gone and deck swept clean, with men clinging to the hoodway. As the bulwarks were gone he could not tell whether it was one of the Short Blue vessels ... He tried to get his vessel down to the disabled craft, but failed to do so, and lost sight of her.The Proserpine was never seen again and the Death Register of Deceased Seaman reports Edward and Henry as 'supposed drowned; missing since the gale of 6.12.95'.
Edward and Mary Ann had seven children in addition to Henry (or Harry as he was known): Elizabeth Mary (1878-1942), Edward Thomas (1880-1926), Arthur William (1884-1978), William Humphrey (1887-1945), May Gladys (1889-1965), Gladys Mary (1891-1982) and Charles Hampingstall Hickmott (1893-1910). Like their father and brother, both Edward Thomas and Charles Hickmott were lost at sea. The UK censuses show that Mary Ann Hampingstall Hickmott nee Humfrey continued to live in the Gorleson area after her husband's death and by 1901 was working as a greengrocer and fruiterer. She died in 1932 and is buried in an unmarked grave at Gorlston Old Cemetery.
Sent to us by John Taylor, the photo is of his grandparents
Edward Thomas and Elizabeth ('Lizzie') Hickmott nee Hulme together with
Edward's mother Mary Ann Hampingstall Hickmott nee Humfrey.
Lizzie is holding their son Edward Thomas Hickmott jnr who, sadly, died aged 21 months.
We think that George Hickmot worked as a post boy and fly driver. In 1871 he was living at 3 Crescent Square in Tunbridge Wells in Kent with his wife, Frances (50 and born at Wadhurst), daughter Mary (an 18 year-old domestic servant born at Tunbridge wells) and son John (a 16 year-old errand boy born at Tunbridge Wells).
Priscilla Hickmott (1781-1859) and Isaac Pearson (1798-1867)
The 1841 census indicates that Priscilla married a farmer, Isaac Pearson, and went to live at Rede in Suffolk. Isaac was born at Hovinger in Suffolk in 1798. The 1851 census shows Isaac and Priscilla at 'Pickards' Farm at Rede in Suffolk. Also present were Isaac's brother Thomas (65), his niece Priscilla Hickmott, a servant Sarah Ebbing and a visitor, the 71 year-old accountant Robert Badham (born in Gloucestershire). The Catherine House records show that a Priscilla Pearson died in the New Market district of Suffolk in the October quarter of 1859 (vol 3b, page 354). Isaac is thought to have died in Suffolk in 1867.
Following the death of his first wife, Grace, in 1796, Nathaniel married Patience in around 1800. They had six children we know of between 1800 and 1812: Cecil Francis, Samuel, John, Richard, Sophia Elizabeth and Henry Hickmott, where all were born at Lamberhurst.
The daughter of Sophia Elizabeth Hickmott, Susannah Elizabeth Hickmott, is thought by Pat Stamp to have married Hugh Munro in Malta on 23 August 1849 (Hugh, was serving there as a member of the Royal Regiment of Sappers and Miners). Sussanah lived in Malta until her death in 1866. She was buried the Ta Braxia Cemetery near Valetta.
The surnames of those we know who married into this line of the Hickmotts include: Baldwin, Clifton, Cornwall (nee Fuller), Inge, Killick, Lawrence, Pearson, Smith, Swift and Tomset.
Russell and Sarah were married in Lamberhurst in 1763 and lived there all their lives. They had six children all of whom were born and a number buried at Lamberhurst: Dunster, David. Timothy, Daniel, Sarah and Sophia. The Monumental Inscriptions for Lamberhurst indicate that Dunster and David died there at age 28 and 22 respectively. We know from the IGI and Russell's will that Sophia married Edward Hammond at Maidstone in 1897, but nothing else about her. The UK censuses and other sources of information have enabled us to glean a little more about the lives and times of Timothy, Daniel and Sarah Hickmott, their families and descendants as follows:
1. Timothy Hickmott (1786-1855) and Sarah Langley (1774-1858)
Russell and Sarah's third son, Timothy Hickmott was born at Lamberhurst in 1768. He married Sarah Langley at West Peckham in Kent on 11 September 1796. Dawn Miles' research of the local tithing schedules shows that Timothy was a yeoman farmer and that he owned considerable land in and around Rotherfield (shown on the left in 1785) in Kent. In addition to his own 277-acre farm with its house, adjoining oast houses and buildings, and home gardens and orchards, his land comprised: hops fields at Gibbs Croft, Camberwell Field, Well Meadow and Oast House Field; arable pastures at Highfield, Haggard and House Meadow; and woodlands and meadows at Cowden Wood and Lower Field. Timothy inherited much of this from his father although Dawn thinks he also acquired some land during his own lifetime.
Timothy and Sarah had eleven children between 1796 and 1818, the first two - Richard and Dunster - were born at Tudeley and Caple and the rest at Rotherfield. By the time of the 1851 census, Timothy (described as an 83 year-old farmer) and Sarah were living at Strawberry Hill in Frant with an elderly servant, Ann Seamour. Living next door to them was their youngest daughter Harriet Hollamby (nee Hickmott) and her husband Edwin and their two children: Edwin Hickmott Hollamby (1850-1854) and Martha Amelia Hollamby (1847-1891).
Timothy Hickmott died at Frant in Kent on 16 March 1855. In his will, he left his wife Sarah, who was to live in one of their cottages on Basinghall Street in Tunbridge Wells until her death three years later, the sum of 40 pounds per year (paid in quarterly installments). The remainder of his property and assets were divided among his seven surviving children: Dunster, Henry, Mary Cooke, Eliza Knowles, Amelia Ireland, Sarah Dudeney and Harriet Hollamby. He also left his treasured double barrel shotgun to his son Dunster; a silver mounted riding whip that had been presented to him by royalty to Henry, and six silver teaspoons to his youngest granddaughter Martha Amelia Hollamby.
What of Timothy and Sarah's children and their children?
Two and possibly three of their girls - Mary Ann, Sophia and Elizabeth Hickmott - died at relatively young ages. We believe that another of their daughters, Amelia Hickmott, married Samuel Sheppard Ireland, an uphosterer from Horsham in Sussex, at Frant on 11 December 1849, and that they had at least two children, William and Samuel Ireland (both born at Southampton in Hampshire). Amelia's younger sister, Sarah Hickmott, also married an upholsterer, John Dudeney, from Lewes in Sussex, on 23 July 1836. They, too, had two children we know of: Mary Ann and Emily Dudeney who were born respectively in Tunbridge Wells and Lewes. As described below, we have been able to discover a little more about the couple's remaining five children, Richard, Dunster, Henry, Mary Ann and Harriet Hickmott, and their families.
1.1. Richard Hickmott (1796-<1855) and Mary Ring
Timothy and Sarah's eldest son, Richard Hickmott is thought to have married Mary Ring in 1820. They had five children between 1823 and 1830, all born in Tunbridge Wells: Mary Sophia Hickmott who married John Baker from Goudhurst in 1843; Ann Wilson Hickmott who married John Michael Moody in London in 1852; Timothy Joseph Hickmott who married Amphilla Harriett Edgson in London in 1850; Eliza Ellen Hickmott; and Frances Amelia Hickmott.
Timothy Joseph Hickmott (1826-1902) and Amphilla Harriet Edgson (1823-1902)
Timothy was born and lived all his life at Tunbridge Wells. He was a carpenter, builder and undertaker by trade. His wife Amphilla Harriet Edgson came from Stokepoges in Buckinghamshire. She married Timothy at Hanover Square in London in 1850 and bore him eight children over the next 20 years, all at Tunbridge Wells: Amphilla Harriet (Lilian) Hickmott who married Charles William Bocking, a railway clerk, in London in 1875; Olivia Edgson Hickmott who married Charles Marsh at Tunbridge Wells in 1883; Edward Richard Hickmott who married Fanny Flora Foreman in Tunbridge Wells in 1880; Henry Joseph Hickmott; Jessie Frances Hickmott who married James Richard Hobbs in Lewisham in London in 1889; Albert Ernest Hickmott, Katherine Hickmott and Leslie Hickmott.
One of Timothy and Amphilla's daughters, Jessie Frances Hickmott (1862- ) was a teacher. She had trained at the teacher's college at Ditchling Road in London, and was employed by the London School Board. One of their sons, Henry Joseph Hickmott, was an engineer and tutor. One of the couple's grandsons, Ashley Gordon Bocking (1886-1960) was also an engineer as well as a theatre manager. One of his granddaughters, Diana Hope Barry (1919-1980), was an actress. Another grandson of Timothy and Amphilla, Sidney Richard Hickmott, served as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) during the First World War. The son of Edward Richard and Fanny Flora Hickmott of Tunbridge Wells, and the husband of Ellen Margaret Oaten, he was killed in action in Belgium on 1 October 1918. He was 33 years old. Along with thousands of others, his name is inscribed on the Tyne Cot Memorial at Zonnebeke in Belgium. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website shows that Sidney and Ellen's only son, Sgt (pilot) Richard Samuel Keith Hickmott of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, died on active service in England on 17 May 1941 and was buried at the Tunbridge Wells Cemetery.
1.2. Dunster Hickmott and Sarah Groves
Timothy and Sarah's second son, Dunster Hickmott, was born at Tudely and Caple in Kent in 1798. He married Sarah Groves, from Shipton in Shropshire, at Speldhurst in Kent on 14 November 1819. Dunster worked for a time as a park keeper at Eridge Park at Frant. He later lived in Tunbridge Wells where he was a 'Propietor of Houses'. He and Sarah had nine children including Emma Agnes Hickmott who married the local portrait painter and landscape artist William Henry Wilkins Heath.
1.3. Henry Hickmott and Sophia Blackman
Henry was born at Rotherfield in 1805 and married Sophia Blackman, from Wadhurst in Kent, at Ticehurst on 22 December 1831. The 1861 census shows him as a farmer of 270 acres (and employing 6 men) at Dengate near Rotherfield. His sons George John Hickmott and Harry Edwin Timothy Hickmott were jointly farming 300 acres (and employing 6 men and 2 boys). Henry died some time before 1871 whereupon his wife Sophia became housekeeper for her youngest son, Harry Hickmott, at the Gate House in Maresfield in Sussex.
George John Hickmott and Sarah Foreman
Henry and Sophia's eldest son, George Hickmott, married Sarah Foreman, a school teacher who had been born at Hunton in Kent in 1868, and had seven children between 1869 and 1879. By 1871 George had ceased farming and had become a land agent and appraiser. He and his family were then living on Springfield Road in Withyham in Sussex. George died sometime between 1871 and 1881 and Sarah and her children returned to Hunton. Sarah decided to retrain as a nurse for in 1891 she was working as a pupil monthly nurse at the Lying In Hospital at St Luke's in London (the head nurse there at the time was a Jane Nightingale from Lancaster). After she completed her training Sarah returned to Hunton. In 1901 she was living at Grafton House there with her daughter Isobel (a governess) and son Augustus (a shop assistant). Three of her sons, Henry, Edwin and Herbert Hickmott, worked as butchers.
Amelia Sophia Hickmott and Anthony Killick
Henry and Sophia's only daughter was born at Rotherfield in 1836. She married a Withyham farmer, Anthony Killick, at St Deny's Church (pictured on the left) at Rotherfield on 19 February 1855. They had four children in all: Edwin Anthony Killick who worked as a farm bailiff and married Sarah Ann Weller in 1880; Mary Ellen Killick; Flora Sophia Killick and Henry John Killick. By 1871 Anthony had given up farming to become a licensed victualler. He and Amelia and their youngest son Henry were living at the 'Wagon of Hale' near Luton at Gillingham. Sophia died some time before the 1881 census which shows Anthony (a 51 year-old widower and farm bailif) living at the Hog House at Buxted in Sussex with his son Henry.
Harry Edwin Timothy Hickmott and Harriet Wickens Corke
The youngest son of Henry and Sophia, Harry was born at Rotherfield in 1838. He married Harriet Corke, the daughter of Obadiah Corke and Margaret Elizabeth Dadswell, at Rotherfield on 30 November 1864. They had one daughter, Ada Hickmott who was born at Maresfield in Sussex in 1868, before Harriet's death around the same year.
1.4. Mary Ann Hickmott and James Cooke (1801-c1860)
Born at Rotherfield in 1807, Mary Ann married a Wesleyan preacher, James Cooke from Gloucestershire, in 1829. The wedding was witnessed by Mary Ann's father Timothy and her two younger sisters Eliza and Amelia Hickmott. After their marriage Mary and James moved from parish to parish, having seven children in the process before James' death in around 1860: Sarah Cooke who was born at Canterbury in 1834; Eliza Cooke (Norwich, 1835); Mary Ann Cooke (Cambridge, 1837); Albert Henry Cooke (Thetford Norfolk, 1841) who married Susannah Pierce in 1870; William Cooke (Luton, 1845); Crockford Rouse Cooke (Rochester, 1848) who married Emma Rowland Haycraft from Falmouth in Cornwall in 1869; and Susannah Cooke (Canterbury, 1850).
Following her husband's death in around 1860, Mary Ann and her daughters were forced to work as seamstresses first in Buckland in Dover and later Holborn in London. In 1871 she had with her her daughter Eliza's illegitimate son Charles Alfred Cooke who was born in Dover in 1864. Her son, Crockford Rouse Cooke, who had been working for the London postal service, died at Holborn in 1877 forcing his 25 year-old wife Emma to take work as a machinist.
1.5. Harriet Hickmott (1818-1890) and Edwin Hollamby (1822-1894)
Born at Rotherfield in 1818, Harriet married Edwin Hollamby, a nurseryman from Frant, in London in 1846. In 1851 the couple and their two children, Martha Amelia Hollamby and Edwin Hickmott Hollamby were living next door to Harriet's parents, Timothy and Sarah Hickmott, at Strawberry Hill in Frant. Edwin junior died at Frant in 1854. Martha never married and lived virtually all her life with her parents. In 1861 the family was still at Strawberry Hill. In 1871 they were living at Goldsmith Park in Rotherfield. In 1891 they were visiting friends in London. Harriet died at Rotherfield in 1890. Martha followed in 1891 and Edwin three years later, marking the end of that line of the Hickmotts and Hollambys.
2. Daniel Hickmott (1771-1849) and Jane Ledger (1768-1845)
Born at Lamberhurst in 1771, Daniel married Jane Ledger, from the adjoining village Brenchley, at Lamberhurst (shown on the left) on 6 November 1794. The couple lived their whole lives at Lamberhurst where Daniel worked as an agricultural labourer. They had eight children between 1795 and 1808, all born at Lamberhurst: Daniel, Jane, David, Stephen, Sarah, Mary, Joseph and Frederick Hickmott. We know nothing of Sarah and Mary beyond their dates of birth. Joseph died at Lamberhurst when he was 15 years old and was buried there. We think that Jane may have married a William Hackett from Igtham in Kent and gone to live there after her marriage although that is still to be confirmed. We know a little more about the lives and times of their remaining four boys as follows:
2.1. Daniel Hickmott (1795-1886) and (1) Ann Hodges (1794-1841) and (2) Helen
Daniel worked in Lamberhurst as an agricultural labourer. He married Ann Hodges, from Speldhurst in Kent, at Speldhurst on 12 December 1819. They had four children - Stephen, Jonathon, Sophia and Ann Hickmott - before Ann's death in Lamberhurst in 1841 (two of their children, Stephen and Sophia died at relatively young ages). Daniel then married a Scottish woman, Helen, and had at least one further daughter, Harriet Hickmott.
2.2. David Hickmott (1798-1880) and Sarah Ann Messer (1807-1885)
Born at Lamberhurst in 1798, David married Sarah, from Frant in Sussex, there on 18 August 1828. They had five children between 1833 and 1845, all born at Frant: Anna Hickmott who married Joseph Dale at Frant in 1862; Sarah Hickmott who married Samuel Palmer at Frant in 1871; Mercy Hickmott who married John Gibb in Frant in 1869; Hephzibah Hickmott who never married and Peter Hickmott who married Catherine Stowell at Frant in 1871. In 1841 and 1851 David, a park keeper, was working and living with his family at Eridge Park in Frant. By 1861 he and Sarah and their unmarried daughter Hephzibar were living at Park Cottage in Frant. Both David and Sarah died in Frant in 1880 and 1885 respectively.
Following the death of her parents, Hephzibar went to live with her widowed sister, Anna Dale, at Hartfield in Sussex. By the time of the 1901 census, the two sisters had moved back to Tunbridge Wells and were living with another widowed sister, Sarah Palmer. Anna was then working as a domestic servant and Hephizibah as a needleworker. The girls' baby brother, Peter Hickmott, had married Catherine Stowell who was a British citizen born at Cephalonia in Greece. Peter was working as a joiner and house carpenter and, by 1891, was living at Tunbridge Wells with his wife and three sons: Andrew Hickmott who worked as a confectioner and married Emma Sayers; Charles Hickmott who married Maude (or Louisa) Greener; and David Hickmott who married Irene Winter.
David was a career soldier who served in the Royal Irish Regiment. He rose to the rank of Regimental Quatermaster Sergeant and served in India and Cork in Ireland where he died and was buried on 21 June 1918. His son, Charles Thomas Hickmott, who was born in India in 1910, emigrated to Australia where he married Mary Margaret Ryde in Sydney in 1950. Their daughter Jacqueline is said to be married to Will Miller, the lead singer of the Irish Rovers.
David's nephew, Leading Assistant Arthur Andrew Hickmott served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. He was one of 157 men who died when their ship, HMS DARING, was torpedoed by the German submarine U23 off the coast of Scotland on 18 February 1940. HMS DARING, whose sailors are pictured above, was escorting convoy number HN-12 from Norway to Great Britain. Arthur was 25 years old, the son of Charles and Louisa Maud Hickmott of Tunbridge Wells. His name is memorialised on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial (Panel 33, Column 1).
2.3. Stephen Hickmott (1800-1876) and Elizabeth Tucker (1800-<1851)
Born at Lamberhurst in 1800, Stephen married Elizabeth Tucker of Igtham there on 18 April 1831. At the time of the 1841 census Stephen and Elizabeth were living at Brown's Wood Lodge in Frant with their children Frederick and Elizabeth. His wife Elizabeth died sometime between 1841 and the 1851 census which showed Stephen, a widowed farmer and woodreever, still living at Brown's Lodge. With him were his son Frederick, his 12 year-old niece Mercy Hickmott (the daughter of Stephen's brother David) and four servants. By 1861 census Stephen had moved to Mayfield in Sussex where he and Frederick ran a farm 140 (later 155) acres in size and on which worked 6 men and one boy. Stephen died in 1876 and Frederick, who we think married Mary Ann Batchelor from Mayfield there in 1878, went to live in a cottage at Brenchly where he worked as an agricultural labourer. Frederick had become 'nearly blind' in 1901 and died two years later, aged 72 years.
2.4. Frederick Hickmott (1808-1889) and Mary Turner (1813- )
Frederick married Mary Turner from Rotherfield in Frant on 30 August 1836. Like his older brother David, he was then working as a park keeper and was living at Eridge Park House in Frant. He and mary and their family later moved to the Birch Pavilion in Frant. They had seven children between 1838 and 1859, all born at Frant: Lois, Mary, Jane, Harry, Frederick, Phillip Daniel and Alexander Horace Hickmott.
Geoff Underhill tells us that Frederick and Mary's first son, Harry Hickmott, married Mary Rose Taylor, from Dorchester in Dorset there in 1896. In 1901 Harry was worked as a game keeper and living at Park Cottage in South Weald in Essex. He and Mary Rose had three children: Addison George Hickmott who married Lilian Gertrude Skeats from Newbury in Berkshire; Cicely Adelaide Lucy Hickmott and Rose May Hickmott (who died at Billericay in Essex at the age of four). Geoff continues that Phillip Daniel Hickmott married Mary Wisdom from Tonbridge and had five children: George, Henry, Theresa, Frank and James Hickmott, all born at Tonbridge in Kent. Alexander Horace Hickmott also worked as a game keeper (at Parlington in Yorkshire). In around 1898 he married Florence Dodson from Armthorpe in Yorkshire.
3. Sarah Hickmott (1773-<1861) and William Martin
Sarah was the last but one of the children of Russell and Sarah Hickmott (nee Chandler). She was born at Lamberhurst in 1773. The local parish registers show that banns were issued for her to marry Thomas Coxe. The wedding did not eventuate, however, even though Sarah bore Thomas' child (and named him Thomas Coxe Hickmott). Sarah's father's will indicates that she eventually married William Martin. The LDS IGI shows Sarah and William, a cordwainer, were married at Leybourne in Kent on 21 March 1796 (Leybourne is a few miles west of Maidstone). The 1841 census has Sarah living in Teston in Kent with her son Thomas Martin, a 35 year-old cordwainer, his wife Mary Ann Weeks, and two children: Mary Ann (6) and William (5m). They are still there in 1851. Sarah is described as a 77 year-old widow and former grocer who was born at Lamberhurst. Thomas was a cricket ball maker who was born at Caple in Kent in 1802. His wife Mary Ann was born in Barming in Kent in 1803. Their children Mary Ann (16) and William J. (10) were also born at Barming. Sarah Martin (nee Hickmott) died sometime before 1861. Thomas and Mary remained at Teston until sometime after 1871.
What of Sarah's other Thomas? Although not altogether certain, we think that Thomas Coxe Hickmott (1792-1883) was probably born at Wadhurst in 1792. He married first Mary Hodgskin at Lamberhurst in 1820 and, following her death in 1829, Thirza Smith in Lamberhurst in 1836. Thomas and Mary had five children: James Hickmott who married Margaret Burton in her home village of Brenchley in 1850 and had at least six children there; Virgil Hickmott; Charles Hickmott who died when he was seven years old; William Hickmott, a gardener who married Maria at Lamberhurst and had at least one child; and Louisa Hickmott who died at Lamberhurst in 1844 aged 16 years.
Thomas and and his second wife, Thirza, the daughter of Henry and Martha Smith (nee Baldwin), lived at Brenchley after their marriage (initially at Barker's Hill and then at Tong Cottage). They had six children: Isaac, Jacob, Horace, Eliza, George and Charles. Dawn Miles tells us that 'Thomas Hickmott died on 20 July 1883 at Tong Farm, Brenchley of "senile decay", as certified by W. Tear, Surgeon. His age was given as 91 years and the informant was his son Jacob who also lived at Tong Farm'. She continues, 'Thirza died of bronchitis and exhaustion, aged 74 years, as certified by T. A. Guinness, MKCS, on 25 February 1883 at Tong Farm Brenchley. Her son Jacob, who was residing at Baker's Hill at Brenchley, was again the informant'.
What of Thomas and Thirza's children? Isaac Hickmott, who was born at Lymbush in Kent and worked as a carpenter, married Frances Dartnell from Tonbridge at Brenchley in 1863 and had three children: Ann, Ellen and Mary Hickmott. His brother, Jacob Hickmott (1839-1890) married a local girl, Sarah Roberts, at Brenchley in 1869 and had no less than fifteen children between 1869 and 1890, all born at Brenchley. We know from the census and Catherine House records that one of these, Charles Frederick Hickmott, married Harriet Hudson from Horsmonden in Kent. According to the Acott Family Tree on Ancestry, Charles' younger sister, Louisa Emily Hickmott married a bricklayer Albert Edwin Acott, the son of William and Mary Dinah Acott nee Waters, at Lewisham in London in 1897. Louisa and Albert (who are pictured on the left) had six children: Albert George, Edith Thirza, Elvina Gladys, Florence May, Mildred Dorothy and Walter John Acott.
Another of Thomas and Thirza's daughters, Eliza Hickmott married Henry Kitchenham at Brenchley in 1864 and had four children: Mildred, Adelaide, Henry and Herbert Walter Rowland Kitchenham. Details and some photos of Henry and his and Eliza's family are contained on Mandy Willard's website Ancestors of Mandy Willard (last revised 28 July 2007). Mandy tells us that Eliza died, probably in childbirth, in around 1873 and Henry remarried, to Emma Moore, at Brenchley on 25 July 1874. He and Emma had fourteen children born in and around Brenchley and Lamberhurst. One of these, Mabel Gertrude Moore, married her step-brother Herbert Walter Rowland Kitchenham and had twelve children.
Eliza's brother, Horace Hickmott, worked as a porter and warehouseman at the Hop Exchange near London Bridge. He married Elizabeth Cook and had four children - Horace, Albert, Frank and Alice Hickmott at Southwark in Surrey and one, Beatrice Hickmott, at Tottenham in Middlesex. Horace and Elizabeth's son Albert Hickmott (1873-1904), who married Annie Elizabeth Smith in Islington in London in 1897, was employed at the nearby Borough Market. You can read about the story of this line of the Hickmotts on Wendy Beckett's website 'The Hickmotts of North London and Kent'.
Finally, Thomas and Thirza's second youngest son, George Hickmott (1846-1926) married Clarrisa Rose (1847-1907) at Brenchley in 1867. They had ten children between 1868 and 1888: Thomas, George, John, William, Alice, Louisa, Horace, Clarissa, Elsie Eva and Charles. In 1875 George and Clarissa and their three eldest children emigrated to New Zealand. According to Murray Mitchell, the family sailed from Gravesend on the HANNIBAL on 9 March and arrived at Nelson at the top of the South Island three months later. They initially established themselves at Motueka but later moved to the nearby town of Riwaka where they remained for the next 18 years. George and Clarrisa's many descendants can today be found in the area around Nelson. The photo below, taken from Murray Mitchell's site, shows George and Clarissa and their family outside their house at Riwaka in New Zealand in 1892.
The surnames of those we know who married into this line of the Hickmotts include: Anderson, Ansell, Baker,Barry, Beckett, Bissel, Blackman, Bocking, Brown, Burton, Carter, Champion, Chandler, Clear, Cook, Cooke, Corke, Cullen, Curnow, Dale, Dartnall, Dodson, Dudeney, Edgson, Foreman, Fowler, Gibb, Greener, Groves, Hammond, Haycraft, Heath, Hobbs, Hodges, Hodgskin, Hollamby, Hollington, Hudson, Ireland, Kinnish, Killick, Kitchenham, Knowles, Langley, Ledger, Lynch, Marsh, Martin, Messer, Miles, Millar, Moody, Moore, Oaten, Palmer, Parkes, Pierce, Prince, Richardson, Ring, Roberts, Rose, Ryde, Sayer, Sayers, Shellard, Skeats, Smith, Stowell, Taylor, Tucker, Turner, Tutbury, Weatherhog, Weeks, Weller, Winter and Wisdom (the names that are italicised have descendants of their own).
Image sources:
Paintings and sketchings of Lamberhurst, St Deny's Church in Rotherfield and St Margaret's Church in Horsmonden all from The Weald of Kent, Sussex and Surrey.
Tyne Cot Cemetery, private collection.
Company of HMS Daring from HMS Daring Photographic Gallery
Albert and Louisa Acott nee Hickmott, from the Acott Family Tree on Ancestry.com.
George and Clarissa Hickmott and family, courtesy of Murray Mitchell's website The Hickmotts in New Zealand.
Last updated: 10 April 2010
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