Henry Edward Hickmott was the only son of Henry Hickmott and Sophia Goldsmith. He was born at Mount Barker in South Australia on 17 May 1853. When he was three years old, he moved with his father and stepmother to Clunes in Victoria where he lived for a few years before moving to Charlton. Henry Edward married Elizabeth Ann Owen in Kingower on 24 April 1877 but continued to reside in Charlton where he worked as a farmer, brick maker and builder. Elizabeth (shown in the photo) was born in Emerald Hill in Melbourne on 15 July 1855 and was the second child of Edward Owen, a miner, and Elizabeth Evans. Edward Owen was born near Bangor and Elizabeth in Montgomeryshire both in Wales. They met and married in 1849 in Liverpool, England from where they emigrated to Australia in 1852 on either the PORT STANLEY or WANATA. Lured by the news of fresh discoveries of gold in the Kingower-Inglewood region in the late 1850s, Edward, or Taffy as he was known, and his family moved from Melbourne to Bet Bet near Dunolly in around 1857 (where their son John Richard was born) and then to Kingower. The couple remained there through the town’s boom and bust periods - the population of Kingower peaked at around 8000 in the 1860s before declining to just 100 by the time of Edward’s death in 1908. His wife Elizabeth died in Kingower in 1893.
At the time of Henry Edward’s marriage, the township of East Charlton boasted two mills, two restaurants and five hotels, the latter being: Klug’s East Charlton Hotel, the Globe Hotel, the Golden Fleece, the Telegraph and the Cricket Club Hotel. It is likely that Henry, his brothers James and William and brother-in-law John Richard Owen frequented the last of these establishments, if not for imbibing or playing billiards, then certainly for planning and issuing challenges to such opposing cricket teams as St. Arnaud, Donald, Mount Jeffcott and Buckrabunyule. Unlike John Owen, who was said to play for Victoria,[1] Henry was what was described by the East Charlton Tribune as a ‘trundler’ who sometimes ‘disturbed the peace’ of his opponents’ ‘timberyard’ and, very occasionally, scored a few runs. Perhaps his most notable performance was against St Arnaud on 20 October 1879, where he took 2/19 and participated in a last wicket stand which resulted in an historic win over East Charlton’s arch rivals. The joy of winning was to be short lived, however, as East Charlton - and Henry’s bowling - were thrashed in a return match held at St Arnaud a couple of weeks later..
While Henry Edward would have helped his father on the latter’s farm, it is likely that, while at Charlton, he worked mostly as a brickmaker and builder. His main customer would have been the local businessman Peter Johnson who, as Grace Cadzow describes, ‘kept the town’s brickmakers almost constantly employed in making bricks for his [various] constructions’ around the place.[2] Henry and his brothers continued to play cricket for Charlton which, by the 1880s, had become ‘a progressive town’. Steps had been taken to give it ‘a better appearance by forming streets and footpaths’ which prevented bullock drays and other heavy vehicles being bogged in the town winter. Kirk’s coach factory had commenced business and a Mechanics Institute was opened in 1883, ‘providing Charlton residents with meeting and reading rooms [that were] well stocked with books and daily and local newspapers’ (Cadzow, p.17). On 20 April 1883, the railway line joining Charlton to Cope Cope was finally opened and, while the visiting dignatories were wined and dined in a specially erected marquee, Henry Edward and his family would have joined the other residents of the town in taking the free train ride to Korong Vale and back.
In 1891 Henry Edward and Elizabeth and their family moved onto a farm near Lalbert where Henry’s sister Rebecca Smith and her family had lived since moving there from Waubra in 1878. The adjoining property was owned by Samuel and Frances (‘Fanny’) Free whose eldest daughter Frances would marry Edward and Elizabeth’s son William Henry in 1910. Henry Edward and Elizabeth Hickmott stayed in Lalbert for some eighteen years. During this time, Henry was responsible for getting the government to establish a school in the area, served as the Secretary of the Lalbert Farmers Association, seemed to be involved in local politics, and, of course, continued to play cricket.
In spite of these interests, Henry and Elizabeth decided, in 1909, to sell up and move to Western Australia where they purchased a farm near Brookton (three of their grown-up children - William Henry, John Edward and Edith Olive - declined to go with their family and stayed in Victoria). As in Lalbert, Henry soon became actively involved in the local community, serving as a founding member of the Brookton Farmers and Settlers Association and its President for two years. On 21 October 1914, he was elected as the member for Pingelly in the Western Australian Parliament where he sat for three terms before being defeated at the 1922 general election. On Sunday 18 January 1931, Henry Edward was killed when he was thrown from a cart. He was laying rabbit poison on his property when the cart hit a stone and he was thrown to the gound, breaking his neck. His funeral took place the following day and he was buried in the Methodist section of the Brookton Cemetery.
William Henry Hickmott and Frances Alice Free
William, born at Charleton on 6 October 1887, was the sixth child of Henry Edward and Elizabeth Hickmott. When he was a small boy, William moved with his family to Lalbert where he attended State School No 2990 with his brothers and sisters and cousins from the Smith family.[3] While he was there, the original school was closed down and, following petitions from the parents, a replacement was built at a more central location. According to a letter written to the Education Department by William’s father, the new school was to be ‘twenty-six feet by thirteen [with] eight foot walls, iron roof [and a] hardwood floor’. It was to have ‘walls of bush pine … two windows, one door, spouting all around and lined and ceiled throughout’.[4]
The numbers of people living in the district during this time were relatively small and this, together with poor transport and great distances between properties, made it inevitable that adjoining families would intermarry. This had been the case with the Frees and the Shepherds in Corack and was to be so again with the Hickmotts. Two of William’s sisters, Sophia Elizabeth and Edith Olive married George William Lewis and Herbert Digby Lewis in 1898 and 1903 respectively. Herbert Lewis, said by many at the time to be the best saddler in the Mallee, owned a shop and house in Lalbert. William’s brother, John Edward Hickmott, married a daughter of William and Margaret Free, Eliza Ada, in 1903. And, on 29 June 1910, William married Eliza’s cousin, Frances Alice Free, in the dining room of her parent’s home at Lalbert East. Frances was the eldest daughter of Samuel and Fanny Free and lived on a farm adjoining that of the Hickmotts. According to Win Noblet:, she and William
made a handsome couple. Frances looked beautiful in her dainty lace and taffeta frock with tiny pleats and rich lace edging. Her elaborate headdress and veil were held in place with orange blossom. After the ceremony William and Frances drove by horse and buggy to take up residence in their first home
The year before William and Frances were married, William’s parents Henry Edward and Elizabeth sold their farm at Lalbert and moved with some of their family to Western Australia. William, his brother John and sisters Sophia and Edith elected to stay in Victoria. William subsequently spent a good deal of his time helping his cousin, John Albert Smith, clear a block of land Smith had bought at Wornack, to the southeast of Ouyen. Attracted by the prospects of good wheat harvests, William applied for another block in the same area and, following the birth of the couple’s second child, Gladys Elizabeth in June 1912, he and Frances loaded their meagre possessions plus some provisions and necessary tools onto a waggon and drove the 110 miles to Al Smith’s block where they lived until their application was approved. Their time at Wornack lasted nearly two years and, in order to survive, William worked for other settlers clearing the Mallee scrub, building fences and performing any other jobs that became available.
William and Frances were eventually granted a 640 acre block of land located to the northeast of Ouyen, and moved there not long after their fourth daughter, Florence Evelyn, was born on 13 July 1915. They initially lived in a small and primitive wooden hut that William had constructed out of logs cut from the surrounding trees. Limited finances meant that William had to continue to seek work elsewhere as well as clear and develop his own property. This meant that Frances and the children were often left by themselves for long periods of time. While Frances was very much a country girl, used to the demands of outback life, the still unfamiliar surrounds combined with her utter isolation and fears of marauding dingoes and other animals, made this a very trying and difficult time for her. As Win Noblet described:
naturally in unfamiliar surroundings and amid the howling dingoes she was afraid. The little girls were terrified and Frances would clutch her little children while keeping a wary eye on the closed door, anticipating any minute it would burst open and the vicious dingoes would attack. … [Their little greyhound Bella] was [also] afraid of the dingoes and the unknown terror of the inky black scrub, and would be acratching at the door, pleading for protection and the warmth and comfort of his masters voice. But Frances was so afraid and although she loved all small things [she] couldn’t bring herself to unlock the door and let little Bella in.
[1] John and Catherine Owen and their two small children John Edward and Sarah Elizabeth left East Charlton in 1882 and travelled to Boulia in northwest Queensland where they lived initially on the Maryvale station which was then owned by Catherine’s uncle W. T. C. Lilley. John and Catherine had four more children there and lived the rest of their lives in the district. John Richard and Catherine Owen both died in Cairns in 1937 and 1923 respectively.
[2] Indeed on 13 September 1879, Henry Edward was called before the East Charlton court to give evidence in support of Johnson who was being sued by a Mr Cowan for injuries received when he fell over a heap of bricks that had been left on the footpath. Henry and another witness swore that Cowan was drunk.
[3] In June 1983, the student body at the Lalbert State School included John, Sophia, Florence, Alice, William and Olive Hickmott - all from Henry Edward’s family - and Albert, Richard, Charles, Ernest, George and Myrtle Smith who were the children of Joseph and Rebecca Smith (nee Hickmott).
[4] The school was moved, in 1901, into the Mechanics’ Institute Hall in Lalbert. The children attending at this time included William’s younger siblings George, Minnie and Ella Hickmott and Myrtle, Percy, Stanley and Lily Smith.
Graeme's Web Page - First Families