HICKMAN, Sir Willoughby, 3rd Bt. (1659-1720), of Gainsborough, Lincs.

Hickman’s cousin, Lord Plymouth, was high steward and governor of Hull in 1685. Hickman attended the governor’s reception and was nominated court candidate, perhaps as compensation for not pressing his claim to succeed his father at East Retford. A moderately active Member of James II’s Parliament, he was appointed to three committees, those for maintaining wool and corn prices, prohibiting the import of gunpowder and reforming the bankruptcy laws; but the anti-government speech in the supply debate sometimes ascribed to him was probably delivered by Sir William Honeywood. He followed the example of (Sir) Henry Monson in returning negative replies to the lord lieutenant’s questions on the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws in Lincolnshire, and in Nottinghamshire, like Sir William Stanhope, he answered curtly that he would do his duty. He was added to the Nottinghamshire commission of the peace in 1689 on the King’s direction, but resigned his crown stewardship of Kirton to Nicholas Saunderson, and it was nine years before he re-entered Parliament. Thenceforward he voted consistently as a Tory till his death on 28 Oct. 1720. He was the last of his family to sit in Parliament.1Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 495-6; CSP Dom. 1682, p. 282; 1685, p. 23; 1689-90, pp. 69-70; Cal. Treas. Bks. vii. 415; ix. 20; HMC Lords, n.s. x. 366; J. Tickell, Kingston-upon-Hull, 558.