Hickman, William Albert (1877-1957)

William Albert (W.A.) Hickman was born on the 22 December 1877, in Dorchester, New Brunswick to Albert Joseph Hickman and Ellen Wilson. W.A's father died in 1878, when William Albert was only fifteen months old. His mother remarried David H. Purves from Pictou, where the family relocated. W.A. attended the Pictou Academy from 1893 to 1896, after which he attended the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a student, he spent his summers working at the Alexander Agassic Institute in Newport. A sculler for the Harvard crew team, he would also later row with the Diamond Skulls at Henely-on-Thames in England. Upon graduating from Harvard with a S.B. cum laude in June of 1899, W.A. obtained the position of “Agent General for New Brunswick” or “New Brunswick Government Commissioner” and was stationed in London, England. In 1903, Hickman had finished working for the New Brunswick government and undertook work for the Dominion of Canada in presenting lectures on New Brunswick throughout Great Britain. After delivering approximately seventy-five lectures, W.A. returned to Pictou and conducted extensive research into the people and landscapes of western Canada. This research was published in the form of a paper, entitled The Canadian West and Northwest and was published by the Royal Canadian Institute in January of 1903. Hickman's novel, The Sacrifice of the Shannon, published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company of New York in 1903, told the story of a sea rescue in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. While living in Pictou, Hickman established his “Viper Company Limited” and patented designs for speedboats. W.A. Hickman married Esther Foss, daughter of ex-Governor Foss of Massachusetts on the 10 October 1914. He remarried Dorothy Chapman of California on the 18 March 1922. William Albert Hickman died in Boston, Massachusetts on the 10 September 1957.