William Hickey (30 June 1749 – 31 May 1830) was an English lawyer, but is best known for his vast Memoirs, composed in 1808–10 and published between 1913 and 1925, which in their manuscript form cover seven hundred and forty closely written pages. Described by Peter Quennell as "One of the most remarkable books of its kind ever published in the English Language", Hickey's Memoirs give an extraordinarily vivid picture of life in late 18th-century London, Calcutta, Madras and Jamaica which stands comparison with the best of his near-contemporary James Boswell. Early life 1749–1769 Hickey was born in St. Albans Street, Pall Mall, Westminster, England, on 30 June 1749, the seventh son of Joseph Hickey, a successful Irish solicitor, and Mary Boulton, from a Yorkshire gentry family. He began his education at Westminster School, but was removed "in high disgrace" in December 1763 after neglecting his studies, frequenting public houses and leading, in his own words, a life of "idleness and dissipation". He was sent to a private school at Streatham in Surrey, where he was able to study Arithmetic, Writing, French, Drawing and Dancing in addition to the Classical Studies which had failed to engage him at Westminster. In January 1766, he left school and began his legal training, but he continued to lead an extremely debauched existence. Eventually he embezzled £500 from the accounts in his father's office, and when this was discovered it was resolved to send the prodigal to India to see if he could make good. Accordingly, Hickey embarked on the ship Plassey, a fast Indiaman, at Dungeness on 4 January 1769. India and Jamaica Upon arriving in India, Hickey was expected to join the British East India Company army as an officer cadet, but he was put off the prospect when he learned that the pay was "too contemptible to afford the common necessaries of life". He got back on the Plassey to return to England. The ship travelled on first to China, of which he gives an account in his memoirs. His father was less than pleased at his return. After Hickey reverted to his old ways, his father sent him to Jamaica to take up as a lawyer, with a warning that if he failed he could expect no further help — indeed, his father would no longer even receive him. Once in Jamaica he found that, because of limits imposed on