Before you could say "Herman Boaz!"

Following on from research into forgotten female magicians on my other history blog, I came across several advertisements in late 18th/early 19th century newspapers that sent me scurrying for the dictionary.

Back then you didn't go to just some illusion or magic show, you went to an "Hurlophusicon and Thaumaturgick Exhibition" and were amazed by a self-acting Horologium machine powered by means of an Alhadida and a Cathetus and then had your thoughts transferred by Steganographical or Paligenesia operations not to mention experiencing Pixidees Metallurgy you probably would never forget ...

The perpetrator of these fantastically descriptive shows was one Herman Boaz, also known as Sieur ("sir" in Old French) Boaz and although he performed throughout Britain, he seems to have made Scotland his main base.

The Magicpedia entry on him is disappointing - and with inaccurate dates - and seems to conclude he was "small fry", yet the number of advertisements and articles about his exhibitions and displays in newspapers and magazines from 1777 onward would suggest he was very popular. 

Even late in the 19th Century many years after his death, tales or reminiscences by people who met him or saw his fantastic shows were still being published. 

Some of his more bizarre acts included a hen that laid twenty eggs in a row on a table in front of the audience and the withdrawing from the innards of a hot "roasted jigget of mutton" cards on which ladies in the audience had earlier written their thoughts. One wonders what state the cards would have been in?

An early advertisement, Hackney, London, 1788

Well into the 19th Century he was still at it. Cheap One Shilling seats in 1788 had inflated to Two Shillings by 1804 (about £3.40 in modern money).

Note the weird and wonderful words of the many "curious operations" in this next announcement that also included "Pyrotecknomancy with a Variety of Chartomantic Deceptions" in which will be found much to improve the mind, including a "most useful lesson to youth in against the pernicious and fatal consequences of gaming". What a pity there were no movies in those days, as the mind can only boggle at what it was all about!

From Caledonian Mercury, December 6, 1804

Boaz died in straightened circumstances in Edinburgh in his 84th year in January 1821 as this obituary in Blackwoods Magazine relates ...

... and the following is an advertisement for a benefit on January 19, 1821 to raise funds to help Boaz's widow. 

Note actress Mrs W. Barrymore.  No connection however to those other stage Barrymores, as according to Wikipedia on Maurice, the patriarch of the American family, he "borrowed" the surname - probably from the husband of this same Mrs W. Barrymore.

No images can be found of Herman Boaz but other searches have located a Marriage Bond for his marriage to Elizabeth Killick in Surrey in 1774, also a romantic rebus poem on the city of Bath that he wrote to Craftsman Weekly that same month, and a note of his contribution in 1806 of three guineas towards the erection of a pillar to Lord Nelson at Edinburgh. 

There doesn't seem to be any Mrs Boaz listed in the Scotland's People archive and if he had any other descendants, they have done the usual disappearing act.

Some publications:

• The Angler's Progress, a poem about fishing.
• A book on the art of juggling, published 1826.
• Several references to Boaz in this online book, The Magical Imagination in England.
• A more notorious conjurer rival and contemporary of Boaz was Gustav Katterfelto, the subject of a recent book Katterfelto: The Prince of Puff by David Paton-Williams.

POSTCRIPT!


The second little advertisement attached to this Boaz one from 1801 captured my attention in that it informs me, by permission, Polish Nobleman, Count Boruwlaski, only 3ft 6ins high, 62 years old, is now available to receive company at Mr McRorie's at East Side for only One Shilling. His memoirs in French will cost you another Five bob.  No extra charge for English translation.

After reading his Wikipedia entry and some swift research, I realise I probably walked right past the Count's resting place when visiting Durham Cathedral last year and apparently his little grave can be seen near the main door, marked by a stone only 15 inches square that simply reads "J.B."  


Oh why did I know nothing of you before, dear little Count, you are just one of the reasons why I so love the quirks and serendipitous discoveries while digging in the dust of history.

More on Count Josef Boruwlaksi in Durham here and you can read those five bob memoirs for free at the Internet Archive.

Dison's. Her Majesty's Laceman

Update to previous post. From The London Illustrated News of 18 August 1849:

EXTRAORDINARY BARGAINS, until SEPT. 25^th, at DISON’S, Her Majesty’s Laceman; when the shop POSITIVELY CLOSES. The lease being disposed of, it passes into another business. Twenty-seven years of Dison’s occupation of them is enough to guarantee the superiority of the articles left on hand, from which an immense reduction has been made. N.B. No. 237, Regent Street.

Buckingham Blonde Laceman

When researching history in old digitised newspapers, one comes across a plethora of weird and wonderful classifieds that vary from the slightly amusing to the outright hilarious, or even incredulous. If it wasn’t so time-consuming, I’d seriously think about a new blog featuring a collection of these old ads but I’m sure there are many other folk out there already doing similar. Instead, I’ll occasionally just select one at random and see if there is something historically obscure worth investigating in it.

The words in bold type, BY HER MAJESTY’S COMMAND and BRITISH BLONDES caught my eye in one from The Morning Post, of 17 February 1832. My mind racing with inappropriate explanations, I soon realised it was perfectly innocent and a careful reading revealed the Blondes to be a type of lace sold by London lace-maker, Henry Dison.

To learn more, I was off on quite an adventure.

I dipped into the pros and cons of bobbins, and machine-made lace vs. the hand-made variety. I visited (virtually) Honiton, Devon, and the Lace Market in Nottingham.

I found that British industry was in a precarious state in the 1830s and that the royal ladies of the day – Queen Adelaide, the Duchess of Kent and her daughter Princess Victoria (later Queen) - were all great supporters of British manufacture and showed the government up by insisting on the women at court wear British-made clothes.

I even ended up perusing law notices dissolving business partnerships to a trial at Old Bailey resulting in the transportation of an unfortunate Thomas Norrington to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) for robbery.

And this is what started it all:

The advertisement is one of many similar placed in British newspapers in the early to mid 19th Century by lace merchant Henry Dison, either on his own or in partnership with others. 

The relevant London Gazette notice referred to was as follows:

Office of the Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen, Queen’s House, St. James. February 9, 1832.  NOTICE is hereby given, that the Queen's Drawing-Room, on Friday the 24th instant, being for the celebration of Her Majesty's Birthday, no presentations will take place.It is particularly requested, that all Ladies attending the Drawing-Room will appear in dresses of British manufacture.

I wonder how they decided the Ladies were wearing British manufacture when they arrived at the Drawing Room. Did they have to provide labels as evidence? Was a particular lady-in-waiting seconded to check with a magnifier for evidence of Continental as opposed to British lace? What happened to any unfortunate woman who failed to heed the royal decree?

There are a number of engravings and prints available showing Dison’s shop in Regent Street, the originals done by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd.  In these from a collection at www.motco.com, if the images are enlarged, the name Dison can clearly be seen over the shop to the right on the corner of Princes Street, bearing the royal warrant and with a couple of loiterers and what looks suspiciously like a woman begging out on the steps. I couldn’t imagine her being tolerated for long by such an up-market establishment!

Another view, with the shop shown in the middle in front of the dome.

What happened to Dison’s - or Henry Dison - eventually? I have yet to find out although the shops of Regent Street have changed countless times since his day. At least it’s all still about fashion, with a Karen Millen store now on the same corner where that woman once sat.

A bit of British Blonde and fashions of the Court ladies who probably frequented Dison's.

Links related to this blog:

From the Old Bailey online - the trial of Thomas Norrington featuring Henry Dison.

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18310512-11&div=t18310512-11 

Norrington's death sentence was commuted and he was transported to Van Diemen’s Land:

http://www.convictrecords.com.au/convicts/norrington/thomas/105134

Various on lace-making and the history of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blonde_lace

http://www.koshka-the-cat.com/royal_magazine3.html

http://www.laceguild.demon.co.uk/index.html

http://www.honitonmuseum.org/index.php?page=lace-making

http://seabastian.hubpages.com/hub/History-of-Lace-Making

http://www.laceforstudy.org.uk/

For the really serious student of lace, check out this booklet produced by Dress & Textiles Specialists in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum

http://www.dressandtextilespecialists.org.uk/Lace%20Booklet.pdf

A Waratah by any other name...

With the centenary of the sinking of the Titantic fast approaching and the events on the Costa Concordia still fresh in the mind, I wondered why certain maritime disasters are soon forgotten and others linger on.

Another ship also described as “unsinkable” had its loss centenary in 2009 but didn’t warrant quite the same amount of hysteria (admittedly the ship wasn't as glamorous nor the body count as high as for Titanic) and that was the disappearance of the SS Waratah in 1909. Not even the involvement of famous author Clive Cussler in the search for the vessel has solved the mystery. Other writers and  bloggers, including this excellent detailed website by a South African genealogist tell the story of the ship and its strange disappearance off Durban.

SS Waratah loading at Adelaide shortly before her disappearance. (State Library of South Australia)

A book has also been written by P. J. Smith.

The waratah is the flower emblem of the State of New South Wales and quite a number of vessels have been called Waratah over the years, but it looks as if it was a jinxed name, as can be seen by this list of official listed shipwrecks from the Australian Government environmental website.

Region	State/Territory
2030	Waratah	Twin screw steamer	1887	Bulli (north), nth of Illawara jetty, ashore	NSW - Illawarra	New South Wales
2031	Waratah	Sailing vessel	1864	Newcastle, off	NSW - Hunter	New South Wales
3311	Waratah	Sailing vessel	1894	Rocky Island, Wellesley Group, Gulf of Carpentaria	QLD - Gulf of Carpentaria	Queensland
5091	Waratah	Sailing vessel	1936	Near Nornalup	WA - South Coast (Walpole)	Western Australia
5092	Waratah	Sailing vessel	1910	Off Cable Beach, Broome	WA - North West (Broome Area)	Western Australia
5093	Waratah	Sailing vessel	1889	Cape Preston	WA - North West (Dampier Area)	Western Australia

But this doesn't show all of them. Disasters involving ships bearing this name go back to at least 1848 when Australian newspapers reported a “Dreadful Shipwreck”, being the loss of the Waratah, bound for Sydney from England, with the loss of thirteen lives, including the commander. It appears the ship got into trouble in a storm near Ushant, off the coast of Brittany, on 19 February with a total loss of all masts. Some of the passengers and crew were rescued by a passing Norwegian vessel, with other crew members left on board. Early in March, the ship "was got ashore at Molene, near Brest with eight men saved, but the cargo much damaged".

Thus, it was somewhat unnerving to read this Melbourne newspaper extract during the investigation following the 1909 disappearance of SS Waratah. Note the rather eerie connection to things going wrong also at Ushant:

W. Sharpe, able seaman, said that in April, 1909, he asked the chief officer of the Waratah for employment, but his answer was, "If anything better offers take it because the ship will be a coffin for some body." He shipped on the Waratah for a voyage to Australia. Off Ushant he noticed that the vessel would roll to leeward, stop, continue the roll, and recover. That was unusual in any ship. ….

One of the very earliest paddle-wheelers in Australia was called Waratah, built 1851 for Hunter Steam Navigation and sold in Shanghai 1862, its ultimate fate unknown.

Tug Waratah

A final happy and positive story is that of the tug Waratah rescued from the scrapheap of history and which is now a proud part of the Sydney Heritage Fleet. Long may she voyage safely on Sydney Harbour!

And ship names aside, there is also a Waratah Bay in Gippsland, Victoria. The Encylopaedia of Australian Shipwrecks lists 15 separate incidents involving foundering, collisions, stranding or sinking taking place in  Waratah Bay with the earliest believed to be an unknown French barque wrecked early in the 19th Century. But that's quite another story.

Waratah Bay

"The wide world for a kingdom, and the saddle for a throne" *

Leading on from the previous post on The Golden Treasury, I started thinking about other narrative poets whose work is now unfashionable.
Much of Rudyard Kipling's poetry is timeless, but there is no getting away from the fact some of it is jingoistic or otherwise seen as controversial by modern eyes. 
The English-born Robert Service is still celebrated in Canada and Alaska but he may be no longer as familiar elsewhere as he once was. 
In Australia, A. B. (Banjo) Paterson and Henry Lawson are still recognisable names but apart from "Waltzing Matilda" and perhaps "Clancy of the Overflow" in the case of the former, it's unlikely younger generations would know much about them or their poems.
Another Australian writer who gained fame for something quite removed from his poetry and who was also born in England was Harry "Breaker" Morant, who was executed by the British during the Boer War. He only remains in the public consciousness due to the successful film of 1980 and a vigorous campaign to have him pardoned.  


And then there is Will H. Ogilvie (William Henry Ogilvie).

From Ogilvie's memoir, "My Life in the Open", 1908

He is often claimed as one of Australia's greatest poets, but spent most of his life in Scotland. He was born in Kelso in 1869 and died in 1963. He actually lived in Australia for only 12 years (where he was coincidentally a great chum of "Breaker" Morant) but swiftly established himself there as a wonderful interpreter of the bush and the drover's life.


A summary of his life and work can be read in the Australian Dictionary of Biography and collections of his poetry are to be found in various sites online and via the Internet Archive. 


While he is probably more famous for his Australian bush verse, for me personally with family heritage in the region, there is nothing more goose-bump-inducing than his lyrical poems about the historical Border region of Scotland and England included in the collection, "The Land we Love". 


Having recently experienced the sacred beauty of Dryburgh Abbey and paid homage at the tomb of Sir Walter Scott, I was pleased to discover an Ogilvie poem that so accurately touches on the atmosphere of the place:


... Here in the stillness sleeps the Bard,
Where the shadows are flung from the Eildons three,
Hush! Step light, lest the peace be marred
Of the sweet spot's silent witchery


With footfall soft as the wind in the tree,
And light as the dew on the bluebell's breast,
Come, come to the rail of his tomb and see
Where the Wizard of Old Romance takes rest ...

And I know of no other poem that conveys that "old romance" of the legendary Border Reivers as fittingly as Ogilvie's highly evocative, "The Raiders".

THE RAIDERS 


Last night a wind from Lammermoor came roaring up the glen
With the tramp of trooping horses and the laugh of reckless men
And struck a mailed hand on the gate and cried in rebel glee:
"Come forth. Come forth, my Borderer, and ride the March with me!"


I said, "Oh!  Wind of Lammermoor, the night's too dark to ride,
And all the men that fill the glen are ghosts of men that died!
The floods are down in Bowmont Burn, the moss is fetlock-deep;
Go back, wild Wind of Lammermoor, to Lauderdale - and sleep!"


Out spoke the Wind of Lammermoor, "We know the road right well,
The road that runs by Kale and Jed across the Carter Fell.
There is no man of all the men in this grey troop of mine
But blind might ride the Borderside from Teviothead to Tyne! 


The horses fretted on their bits and pawed the flints to fire,
The riders swung them to the South full-faced to their desire;
"Come!" said the Wind from Lammermoor, and spoke full scornfully,
"Have ye no pride to mount and ride your father's road with me?"


A roan horse to the gate they led, foam-flecked and travelled far,
A snorting roan that tossed his head and flashed his forehead star;
There came the sound of clashing steel and hoof-tramp up the glen
... And two by two we cantered through, a troop of ghostly men!


I know not if the farms we fired are burned to ashes yet!
I know not if the stirks grew tired before the stars were set!
I only know that late last night when Northern winds blew free,
A troop of men rode up the glen and brought a horse for me!

Memorial cairn to Will H. Ogilvie in the Scottish Borders

Another view of the cairn and its location can be found here.


While researching this topic, I came across a couple of most encouraging news stories regarding the inaugural Will Ogilvie Night held very recently in Eckford, Scottish Borders. It is great to know that he hasn't been forgotten and that there is in existence a Will Ogilvie Memorial Society that has plans to bring Ogilvie back to the A-list of both Scots and Australian poets where he belongs.


http://onlineborders.org.uk/community/cennews/will-ogilvie-remembered

http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/lifestyle/life/supper_starts_plan_to_add_ogilvie_to_poetry_s_a_list_1_1993406

The Cheviots

* From the poem inscribed on Ogilvie's memorial.

Memories of The Golden Treasury

Strange as it may seem these days, there was a time when reading poetry together could be a form of family entertainment.

When I was a child, I would often sit with my father as he read aloud his favourite narrative poems from The Golden Treasury, a compilation of verse by F. T. Palgrave, first published in 1861.  I would be completely captivated by the rhythms of the language and the images it invoked. Although much of this poetry has fallen out of favour and is considered old-fashioned, or just too pompous or jingoistic for modern tastes, some of it remains popular today. Who can mention the Crimean War without the temptation to quote at least a couple of these famous lines from The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson?
Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.



Loss of the Royal George, Spithead, 1782



An early poem in this genre of tragic military or naval disaster was Loss of the Royal George by William Cowper. The poem was also set to patriotic music by George Handel.

Toll for the Brave!

The brave that are no more!

All sunk beneath the wave

Fast by their native shore!



... But Kempenfelt is gone,

His victories are o'er,

And he and his eight hundred

Must plough the wave no more.



Other narrative poets have also slipped into obscurity. T[homas] Campbell wrote about episodes from the Napoleonic era. Stirring stanzas such as these from Hohenlinden can apply to any battle before or since.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven,

Then rushed the steed to battle driven,

And louder than the bolts of heaven

Far flashed the red artillery. ...



And redder yet those fires shall glow

On Linden's hills of blood-stained snow,

And darker yet shall be the flow

Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

Campbell's Ye Mariners of England and Battle of the Baltic were my early introduction to the exploits of Britain's great naval age. I defy anyone to read such poems aloud and not be moved in some way, by the metre and use of language at least if not the content.

'Hearts of oak!' our captains cried, when each gun

From its adamantine lips

Spread a death-shade round the ships,
Like the hurricane eclipse
Of the sun.  ...
Brave hearts! to Britain's pride
Once so faithful and so true,
On the deck of fame that died
With the gallant good Riou:
Soft sigh the winds of heaven o'er their grave 

While the billow mournful rolls

And the mermaid's song condoles

Singing glory to the souls

Of the brave!

 

Grandpa by John Faed, 1876 (private collection)



Robert Southey's poem After Blenheim had special attraction for me as it featured two children, Peterkin and Wilhelmine, who unearthed a skull and took it to their grandfather, Old Kaspar. He told them the story of the battle, how he dug up soldier's bones with his plough and how the countryside was laid waste with the loss of many innocent lives. But Old Kaspar does not seem to bear hatred or indignation, just a simple confusion and resignation to the unfathomable nature of war. Only with the excuse of it being "a famous victory" can the grandfather answer the children's probing questions. Written in 1798, its message is timeless and as relevant today as it ever was.

'It was the English,' Kaspar cried,
Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for
I could not well make out.

...'Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!'
Said little Wilhelmine;
'Nay ... nay ... my little girl,' quoth he,
'It was a famous victory.
And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win,'
'But what good came of it at last?'
Quoth little Peterkin: -
'Why, that I cannot tell,' said he,
'But 'twas a famous victory.

Derek Jacobi gives an excellent reading of the complete poem here.



Burial of Sir John Moore, Cassells Illustrated History



Another sombre offering that might seem a strange sort of poem to read to a child was The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna by Charles Wolfe, but it didn't disturb me in the least as I almost revelled in its drama and Gothic melancholy. (Like Admiral Kempenfelt of the Royal George, or Captain Edward Riou who rates a single line in Campbell's Battle of the Baltic, Sir John Moore is another largely forgotten figure from British history.) 

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot

O'er the grave where our Hero we buried.

...

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone -

But we left him alone with his glory.

Stones were raised to Sir John Moore later and here are some photographs of his grave as it is today at A Coruna.

And finally, with recent media reports that the coffin of Sir Francis Drake could soon be located in the Caribbean, it is worth mentioning that other rousing work Drake's Drum by Sir Henry Newbolt that I greatly enjoyed as a child, its most famous stanza being: 

Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,

Strike et when your powder's runnin' low;

If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven, 

An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.

Youtube of the sung version of Drake's Drum by Sir Thomas Allen.

And the real drum itself can be seen at Drake's home, Buckland Abbey.

Brayvo, Hicks!

It is always a pleasure to discover an interesting individual who was greatly celebrated in his day but is completely forgotten now.  One larger-than-life character came to light for me after reading recent media reports announcing the reopening of the home of William Hogarth in Chiswick, West London, after a closure of some years. Hogarth, of course, is very well-known for his illustrations of 18th Century life (perhaps lesser so for his association with the Foundling Hospital), but it was a brief mention of his house once having been lived in by one Newton Treen Hicks, a popular melodramatic actor, that sent me digging in the dust. 

Here was a man whose over-the-top acting style was loved by thousands of London theatre-goers and led to an expression that was immortalised in the popular slang of the era, as can be found in Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Historical Slang:  

Brayvo, Hicks! [meaning] Splendid! [Used in] music-halls and minor theatres: from ca. 1830; ob[scure] by 1910.



Ware , "in approbation of muscular demonstration ... From Hicks, a celebrated ... actor .... more esp. "on the Surrey side". In late 19th - early 20th Century applied in South London widely, e.g. "Brayvo Hicks - into 'her again".  

There does not seem to be any published biography of Hicks, but from the many colourful facts I unearthed in old newspapers and court documents, he is certainly worthy of rediscovery. 
He was sometimes referred to as a "transpontine" actor and the scathing London critics of the day had a snobbish attitude towards any acting done south of the river, i.e. at the Surrey Theatre in Lambeth where Hicks excelled.
Critics haven't changed much and just like those today who look down on any entertainment that is popular, they were just as dismissive of the rowdy, cheering audiences who appreciated the gusto of Hicks' perfomances.
In his career, Hicks played everything from Macbeth and Hamlet to Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and Rob Roy, from the Count of Monte Cristo to gypsy kings, pirates and swashbucklers of every persuasion, but it seems he was best-loved when being comedic and playing to excess in melodrama and farce.

 

Hicks as Morden Brenner

 Hicks probably lived beyond his means; he was a part-time publican as well as an actor and occasionally used the name of Theodore Hicks. It appears he also wound up in debtors prison on more than one occasion. The London Gazette has several references over a ten year period to him appearing before the Court for Relief of Insolvent Debtors. Some vivid descriptions of this Court in operation during the mid 19th Century (including Dickens in Pickwick Papers) can be read here.
 

The actor's temperament was probably as combustible as some of the characters he played, and an 1837 court case which "excited much laughter" over an incident at Sadlers Wells Theatre sounds like a plot from one of his melodramas.
After a performance and while still in his costume as a Knight, it seems he first tried to set fire to, and then drown head-first in a water butt, one James Shankes, a scene shifter who was in charge of creating fire and brimstone for the play and had supposedly spotted Hicks' inappropriate attentions towards a young girl in the ballet and dared to report the same to her father.
Hicks was fined 6s. 8d. for his attempt to send Shankes to the "nether regions" but was "strongly congratulated by his professional brethren at the result". The unfortunate James apparently hightailed it to another theatre!



The Blood Red Knight (Hicks?)



There are a number of references to the numerous injuries Hicks received from the stage antics and leaps for which he was well-known and his obituary of 1873 states he was possessed of "extraordinary strength, combined with indomitable courage" [and]

"While fulfilling an engagement at Colchester a fire broke out, and he, at the hazard of his life, saved two children from the flames by ascending a ladder, when even the firemen and all around refused, succeeding in reaching the top of the house where the children lay, and bringing them down in safety. The ladder was absolutely on fire while he was upon it, and went to pieces the moment he had reached the ground."

I have been unable to find a serious portrait of Hicks, but the tinsel prints by John Redington were popular for many years for use in children's cut-out theatres. Those on this page come from Toy Theatre website and a number of them can also been found in the digital collection in the New York Public Library.

Hicks married Elizabeth Bell in 1837 and acted with her in a number of productions but in the Census Return of 1871, when he was living in Hogarth's House, the name of his wife is listed as Sarah - possibly he was then widowed and she was a companion or housekeeper. Hicks' obituary states that he had suffered from "brain softening due to overstudy" for some years before his death.

Numerous reviews of Hicks the actor can be found in newspapers of the era: some critics described him as "perfection" but more often than not, they were disparaging or mocking about his enthusiastic and "over-loud" performances, but if the audiences loved him then that is all that mattered.

Here is a website detailing the history of the Surrey Theatre in Lambeth.

Theatrical playbills can be found at the East London Theatre Archive from the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Hicks as Claude Duval