Susan Hickmott (nee Piccup/Pickup)
1801-1861
SamuelÕs third wife was Susan Piccup (sometime spelt Pickup) who
he married in the St Mathews Church of England at New Norfolk in Tasmania on 3
January 1848. The wedding certificate records that both parties were of Ôfull
ageÕ and were employed as servants. The ceremony was witnessed by SamuelÕs
brother Thomas and a Rachel Wilden both of who, like Samuel and Susan, signed
the certificate with a ÔmarkÕ.
Susan was an interesting and possibly a notorious character whose
intrusion into the Hickmott story provides a revealing insight into SamuelÕs
own character (and judgement). The convict records for Tasmania show she was
transported there on the ÔAmericaÕ on 9 May 1831. She was then 30 years old,
was said to be a milliner and dress maker by trade, and came from Manchester in
England. Just over 5 feet in height, her complexion was described by the
administrationÕs clerks as Ôbrown and freckledÕ. They added that she had a
Ôlarge visageÕ, reddish brown hair and a large nose. She and two others - Ann
Horrocks, a nursemaid, and Ann Brenchton a house servant Ð had all been tried
at Salop in Shrewsbury on 7 August 1830 and transported for life. SusanÕs crime
was housebreaking while the other two were convicted of highway robbery. The
records further indicate that Susan was married at the time to a Joseph Piccup,
another convict who came to Australia on the ÔRed RoverÕ, and that she had one
child.
SusanÕs behaviour on the voyage out was said by the shipÕs
authorities to be ÔorderlyÕ. Her early life in Hobart Town was far from so. Her
convict record, which was maintained until she was granted a pardon in July
1848, showed her to be constantly in trouble with the colonial authorities. On
10 August 1832, she was charged by T.T Gellibrand with being insolent to her
mistress and was returned to the Female House of Correction for assignment to
the Interior. Between 1832 to 1836 she was charged with insolence or being out
after hours on four further occasions. From then on the gravity and frequency
of her crimes and misdemeanours seemed to increase. On 7 June 1836 she was
found by Magistrate Graff to be Ôin a public house with a man belonging to the
Sandy Bay partyÕ, and was again Ôreturned for assignment in the interiorÕ.
Three months later, on 29 September 1836, she was again indicted for Ôhaving
improper connections in Hobart TownÕ and was returned for assignment Ôa long
distance from HobartÕ.
Following a series of charges
and confinements for drunkenness and disorderliness, she was indicted on 27
March 1840 for Ôharbouring a ticket-of-leave man in her lodgingsÕ. This last
misdemeanour attracted six months imprisonment and a period of hard labour in
the Female House of Correction at Launceston. Her subsequent offences included
being out without a pass, drunk in a public house, and Ôconducting herself in
an indecent and shameful mannerÕ (for which she served 12 months hard labour).
Despite these and a string of subsequent indiscretions the authorities
recommended, on 3 October 1845, that she be given a conditional pardon which,
in spite of receiving 14 days hard labour on 12 June 1847 for harbouring an
unsuitable personage (about whom the record is unclear), was approved on 11 July 1848.
It may be no coincidence that
the granting of the conditional pardon occurred soon after SusanÕs marriage to
Samuel Hickmott in January the same year. Given their abject failure to change
her ways, the authorities were probably only too pleased to pass the
responsibility for her behaviour on to someone else. We have no idea whether
this stratagem worked for her official record ceased to be maintained once she
moved beyond the direct control of the state. On the other hand, I have not
researched the colonyÕs court reports between 1848 and 1860 when she finally
left Tasmania and travelled to Victoria. One additional and interesting piece
of information about her is that, prior to her marriage to Samuel, Susan (or
her prospective spouses) had applied to be married no less than five times.
Three of these applications (in August 1836, December 1844 and as late as
December 1845) were made by a Michael Brandreth who had been transported to
Tasmania on the ÔDavid LyonÕ in 1830. The other prospective suitors were the
convicts John Wise and William Moses whose applications were presented to the
authorities in November 1837 and April 1841. Despite, or perhaps because of her
character, she seemed to be highly sought after at least by members of the
convict fraternity.
Samuel may have been very
pleased with his catch. Yet again he may possibly have lived to regret his
apparent good fortune, especially once he got to know her better. Was this the
reason Samuel left Tasmania not long after he received his certificate of
freedom on 9 January 1850 and travelled to South Australia to join his son
Henry and his family there? It is possible of course that Susan may have gone
with him although we have no evidence that she did so. Indeed we are not
entirely certain that Samuel went there. We do know that in around 1854 he,
like his son Henry, made his way to the Victorian goldfields. We also know that
sometime in 1860 he was joined there by Susan. For on 1 July 1861 she died at
Inglewood in Victoria of a Ôserious effusion on the brainÕ. Her death
certificate, which was informed by Samuel, states that she was 61 years old,
had been born in Manchester in England, and her father was a solicitor by name
of Barland. It also states that she had been in the colony for only 14 months.
Susan Hickmott (nee Piccup nee
Barland) was laid to rest in the cemetery that is located on a rise near the
edge of the town of Inglewood and which today in summer looks out across golden
wheat fields. No headstone survives, so we only have her death certificate and
the register of burials to indicate where she is. As in the case of many of her
compatriots, these make no mention that she had been a convict and provide no
details of her time in Van DiemenÕs Land. We have only SamuelÕs word,
furthermore, that she was born the daughter of a solicitor. While such a
possibility canÕt be ruled out, it sits uneasily with what we do know about her
life both in England and Tasmania. Was Samuel (in accordance, perhaps, with the
wishes of Susan herself) providing her in death with the status and dignity
that had been unavailable to her in life? Or was the attempted re-construction
of her identity a consequence of the social prejudices that continued to
confront the colonyÕs former convicts? We are likely never to know the full
truth of the matter. Her case, however, provides another small example of the
personal costs imposed by colonial society on AustraliaÕs citizens of convict
origin.