Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/362

 rites, Hickey compiled materials for the revised offices of the church for the festival of St. Catherine of Siena.



HICKEY, THOMAS (fl. 1760–1790), painter, was born in Dublin and studied in the Academy there. He visited Italy and studied at Rome, and on his return practised as a portrait-painter in London. In the Mansion House at Dublin there are portraits by him of George, first marquis Townshend (1769), and of John, fourth duke of Bedford. In London there is at the Garrick Club a portrait of Mrs. Abington, and at the Magdalen Hospital a full-length portrait of Mr. Justice Park. Hickey's portrait of Daniel Race, chief cashier to the Bank of England (1772), was engraved in mezzotint by J. Watson. Hickey also practised at Bath, and appears to have visited India, being probably the author of ‘The History of Painting and Sculpture from the Earliest Accounts,’ published (vol. i. only) at Calcutta in 1788. He accompanied Lord Macartney's embassy to China in 1792. A drawing of a Chinese scene is now in the print room at the British Museum.

(1756–1795), sculptor, elder brother of the above, born in Dublin in 1756, was pupil of Mr. Cranfield, a wood-carver, and after practising some time in Dublin with success, came to London. He was patronised by Edmund Burke, and became a student in the Royal Academy, where in 1778 he obtained the gold medal for a bas-relief of ‘The Slaughter of the Innocents.’ He showed great promise, but intemperate habits caused his early death in London, 12 Jan. 1795.



HICKEY, WILLIAM (1787?–1875), philanthropist, born in 1787 or 1788, was the eldest son of Ambrose Hickey, D.D., rector of Murragh, co. Cork. After spending five terms at Trinity College, Dublin (1804–5), he was admitted a pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge (7 March 1806). His father was admitted fellow-commoner at the same college three days later. William proceeded B.A. at Cambridge in 1809, and was admitted to the same degree in that year at Dublin, where also he graduated M.A. in 1832. In 1811 he was ordained for the curacy of Dunleckny in the diocese of Leighlin, from which he removed in 1820 to the incumbency of Bannow, diocese of Ferns. While there he built a glebe house, restored the fabric of the church, and in conjunction with Thomas Boyce of Bannow House founded an agricultural school on a farm of forty acres. With Boyce, too, he established the South Wexford Agricultural Society, the first of its kind in Ireland. From Bannow he was promoted in 1826 to the rectory of Kilcormick, where he built a new church and a school-house, besides originating many much needed improvements in the shape of roads and bridges. The following year, in a time of fever and famine, he proved, at a great pecuniary sacrifice, an active and untiring friend of his people. In 1831 he was advanced to the rectory of Wexford, and finally, in 1834, to the union of Mulrankin. He was also rural dean of Tacumshane. Hickey was much impressed by the poor condition of the Irish farmer, and studied such improved modes of husbandry as might be communicable, in a cheap and simple form, to the occupants of a few acres. As early as 1817 he distinguished himself by an ably written pamphlet on the ‘State of the Poor in Ireland.’ His first work on farming was dated from Ballyorley, Kilcormick, and was written, like his subsequent publications, under the pseudonym of Martin Doyle; it was originally issued in the ‘Wexford Herald’ in the form of letters to the editor as ‘Hints to Small Farmers,’ and when published in a collected form in 1830, passed through numerous editions, of which the last appeared in 1867. These letters were followed in succession by ‘Hints on Road-work,’ 1830; ‘Hints to Small Holders on Planting and on Cattle,’ 1830; ‘Irish Cottagers,’ 1830; ‘Hints on Emigration to Upper Canada,’ 1831 (3rd edit. 1834); ‘Practical Gardening,’ 1833 (2nd edit. 1836); ‘The Flower Garden,’ 1834 (3rd edit. 1839); ‘A Cyclopædia of Practical Husbandry,’ 1839 (new edit., enlarged by the Rev. W. Rham, 1844 and 1851); ‘Rural Economy for Cottage Farmers and Gardeners, by Martin Doyle and others’ [1851] (6th edit. 1857); ‘Small Farms: a Practical Treatise intended for Persons inexperienced in Husbandry,’ 1855; ‘Farm and Garden Produce,’ 1857; ‘The Farmer's Manual’ [1868]; ‘Practical Gardening: Vegetables and Common Fruits,’ new edit. 1868; ‘Cottage Farming,’ 1870; and ‘Field and Garden Plants,’ 1870. Hickey also regularly contributed to several periodicals, among which were the ‘Highland Society's Quarterly Journal of Agriculture,’ ‘Blackwood's Agricultural Magazine,’ the ‘Gardener's Chronicle,’ and ‘Chambers's Journal.’ With Edmund Murphy he conducted the ‘Irish Farmer's and Gar-