Educated at University College Hospital, where he was Liston Surgical Medallist in 1860 (with an essay on "Some Varieties and Effects of Cancerous Disease of Bone"), House Surgeon, House Physician, and Ophthalmic Surgical Assistant. After a long visit to the East he returned to London and set up in practice in Dorset Square; became Surgeon to the Western General Dispensary, Surgeon to Out-patients Samaritan Free Hospital, and in 1883 President of the Harveian Society. In his Presidential Address he set out a list of proposals which have an interest as exhibiting what was being advocated in some circles at that time: a fifth year to the medical curriculum; direct representation of general practitioners on the General Medical Council; a post-graduate course for general practitioners; younger members of the hospital staffs to teach the students, senior members to lecture and demonstrate to medical practitioners; an amalgamation of the two Royal Colleges into a Royal College of Medicine which should grant the degree of MD, to be retrospective and admit all those holding the qualifications of the two colleges, but without superseding the University of London. In the spring of 1892 Hickman succeeded Sir Oscar Clayton as Surgeon in Ordinary to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In May, 1896, he underwent a serious operation from which he improved temporarily, but fell ill again before Christmas, and died at 122 Harley Street on March 27th, 1897. He had a country house, Camberlot Hall, Sussex, and he married in 1865 Emmeline, youngest daughter of Thomas Lea. His son, Dr H E Belcher Hickman, practised subsequently at Chesham. His portrait is in the Fellows' Album. Publications: "Address on the Aids and Hindrances to the General Physician or General Practitioner of Medicine-to the Harveian Society of London." - *Lancet*, 1888, i, 280. *Pleas for the Establishment of a Royal College of Medicine by an Amalgamation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons*, 1885. An early use of the rhinoscope is mentioned in his paper on "A Steel Ring Impacted for Thirteen and a Half Years in the Nasopharyngeal Fossa of a Child - Detection by the Rhinoscope and Removal." - *Brit Med Jour*, 1867, ii, 266.