Katherine Hickson
(born 1826)
1860

[This portrait does not appear in the Silvy daybooks. It was presumably one of the theatrical portraits in Volume 1, part of the series that Silvy, assisted by Adolphe Beau, created in the spring of 1860. These pages were excised from Volume 1 at some point prior the National Portrait Gallery acquiring the daybooks in 1904. All these prints of theatrical luminaries were floated off their pages and are now a part of the Guy Little Collection of theatrical portraits at the Victoria and Albert Museum. They have a variant pose from this sitting and, crucially, they have an identification for the sitter. She was Miss Katherine Hickson.]

Born in Marylebone on 1 March 1826, Katherine Hickson was the daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Hickson. Odd as it seems, she was baptised at St Marylebone’s on 17 November 1836, when she was 10 years old. The family were living at 72 Welbeck Street and her father Samuel gave ‘Italian Warehouse Man’ as his profession. 

She had embarked on her theatrical career certainly as early as the mid-1850s. Many newspapers reviewed her readings from Shakespeare, for example ‘Miss Hickson renders the productions of the immortal bard in a truly artist manner. Her enunciation is clear, rich and distinct, while her action is beautifully measured, and her rapid transitions from character to character are perfect studies’ (Windsor and Eton Express, 25 April 1857)

She appears on the 1861 census, aged 25, living with her parents and older unmarried sister Elizabeth in Chiswick, West London. She gave ‘Tragedian’ as her profession. Her father Samuel described himself as a ‘Gentleman.’

On 2 October 1869 at St John’s Church in London’s Notting Hill she married Joseph George Ellis Cameron, son of Hugh Innes Cameron of Dingwall. The groom gave ‘Esquire’ as his profession. The bride’s name was recorded as Emily Kate Sarah Hickson.

He had until the previous year been an officer in the Indian Army but he was court-martialled and cashiered for having been drunk on duty under arms at Poona ‘on or about the twenty-fourth day of April’ (The Times of India, 21 July 1868). 

When the census was taken in 1871 the couple were living with Katherine’s widowed mother in Fulham. She now gave ‘Dramatic Reader’ as her profession. Her husband described himself as ‘Late Capt. Madras Staff Corps.’ According to an article in the Inverness Courier (21 July 1931) he was ‘a captain in the 13th Madras Native Infantry.’ 

‘Madame Katherine Hickson gave a dramatic recital at the Langham Hall on the evening of Thursday last, the play being the “Merchant of Venice,” in which Madame Hickson displayed histrionic ability’ (The Globe, 12 July 1879). 

In March 1881 ‘Madame Katherine Hickson' was giving ‘Costume Recitals’ at the Royal Polytechnic in London (Building News, 11 March 1881). She was still there the following month (The Noncomformist, 14 April 1881). This appears to have been her last run of performances. 

In 1885 she and her husband were living at 49 High Street, Kensington, and each was recorded as a ‘teacher of elocution’ (Commercial Gazette, 29 October 1885). 

Born at Dingwall in Scotland in 1836, he died in Fulham, aged 54, on 27 January 1891. 

I have not been able to trace her death.