Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/352

 curate at Corton, near Lowestoft (1843–8); teacher and preacher at Lowestoft (1848–1852); curate of St. Paul's, Covent Garden (1852); and assistant minister of St. John's Chapel, Edinburgh (1852–4). His connection with this last terminated somewhat suddenly. A bitter controversy with the incumbent led him to establish the New Church of England Chapel, St. Vincent Street, where he laboured for some years. He subsequently fulfilled the duties of British chaplain at Lisbon, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. He died at 13 St. Lawrence Road, North Kensington, on 26 March 1886. Hibbs's chief work, founded on personal investigation, is ‘Prussia and the Poor; or Observations upon the Systematised Relief of the Poor at Elberfeld in contrast with that of England,’ 1876; 4th ed. 1883. He also published, besides separate sermons: 1. ‘The Substance of a Series of Discourses on Baptism,’ 1848. 2. ‘God's Plea for the Poor,’ 1851. 3. ‘Scottish Episcopal Romanism; or Popery without a Pope, in reply to Bishop Wordsworth's “Theory and Practice of Christian Unity,”’ Edinburgh, 1856, 12mo. 4. ‘Truth Vindicated, or Some Account of the New Church of England Chapel in Edinburgh,’ 1858; 4th ed. 1859.

 HIBERNICUS, THOMAS (fl. 1310). [See .]

HICKERINGILL or HICKHORNGILL, EDMUND (1631–1708), eccentric divine and pamphleteer, son of Edmund Hickhorngill, was born at Aberford, near Leeds, and baptised on 19 Sept. 1631. He became a pensioner at St. John's College, Cambridge, on 17 June 1647 (, Admissions, p. 85). From Lady day 1651 to Midsummer 1652 he was junior fellow of Gonville and Caius College (cf. Works, ii. 467, iii. 29), where the views on baptism of the master, William Dell [q. v.], seem to have influenced him. In 1652 we find him at Hexham, Northumberland, where ‘Edmund Hickhorngill’ on 24 Aug., having received adult baptism, was admitted into the baptist church formed in that year by Thomas Tillam of Colchester. On 20 Dec. ‘the church, with prayer, fasting, and imposition of hands of the minister, ordained brother Hickhorngill a minister, and their messenger into Scotland.’ He reached Dalkeith on 30 Dec.; on 8 Jan. 1653 he began a series of letters to his Hexham friends, signing himself (if the transcript is correct) ‘Edward Hickhorngill.’ Monck handed him over to Lilburne, who made him chaplain in his own regiment of horse. In March he joined a baptist church at Leith; but his opinions rapidly changed; in May he was excommunicated, and became a quaker. On 12 July he returned to Dalkeith ‘in a swaggering garb,’ having renounced quakerism and become a deist, owning ‘no other rule to himself but his reason.’ His old friends regarded him as ‘a desperate atheist.’ In September he wrote to Hexham a penitent letter from St. Johnstons (i.e. Perth), where Lilburne had given him a place in the garrison as lieutenant to Captain Gascoigne in Colonel Daniell's regiment. The baptists do not appear to have received him again. By his own account he remained in Scotland ‘above three years,’ being stationed as ‘governor and deputy governor’ at Finlarig and Meikleour castles, Perthshire; he was ‘one of the first and last justices of the peace that ever was in Scotland’ (ib. iii. 29). His next move was to foreign service; he ‘was a soldier and captain (by sea and land) under Carolus Gustavus, king of Swedes’ (ib. p. 56). He visited Spain and Portugal, returned to England as Swedish envoy, and then became a captain in Fleetwood's regiment. Some appointment was found for him in the West Indies, and he made a stay in Jamaica. The Restoration brought him back to London towards the end of 1660; he drew up an account of Jamaica, dedicating it to Charles II. In this, his first publication, his name appears as Hickeringill. It is a clever description of the island, its products and people, interspersed with rude verses in coarse taste. Charles gave him a post of 1,000l. a year (ib. iii. 200) as secretary to Lord Windsor, ‘then going governour to Jamaica.’ But Hickeringill once more changed his mind, and was ordained (1661) by Robert Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, who, he says, ‘was nick-nam'd the presbyterian bishop’ (ib. ii. 379). On 30 Jan. 1662 he preached a loyal sermon, comparing Charles I to Naboth. His first preferment seems to have been the vicarage of St. Peter's, Colchester, Essex; on 25 Aug. 1662 he signs the baptismal register as ‘Edward Hickeringill, vicar.’ This living he did not hold long; on 21 Oct. 1662 he was admitted to the rectory of All Saints, Colchester, a benefice which he retained till his death. From 22 Oct. 1662 till 1664 he was vicar of Boxted, Essex.

At All Saints Hickeringill succeeded an ejected nonconformist. He at first avoided ceremonies likely to be obnoxious to his congregation, and his extemporaneous vivacity as a preacher made him popular with the multitude. He came out as a pamphleteer in 1673, with a criticism of Marvell's ‘Re- 