Edred Rosevere Hicks

  General Notes:

The late Edred Rosevere Hicks.
1871 - 1944

Older residents of the Islands (Scilly Isles) who knew him as a boy, will regret to hear of the death at Adelaide, South Australia, on January 29th last, of Edred Rosevere Hicks, who was the fourth son of the late Captain Thomas Hicks and his wife Mrs Katie Hicks, and a brother of the late Thomas and Herbert and of Katie May, William and James who are residents of Adelaide.
He was born at the Parade, St Mary's 73 years ago.
There are many dwelling in the Islands and elseware who will not only remember Edred and his parents, sisters and brothers, but will also remember having heard of the loss at sea of the vessel of which their father was Captain, which cleared Callao for England in 1874 and was not again heard of. Some years later his widow with her children, and her aged parents, Stephen and Elizabeth Gibson, left Scilly for Adelaide, South Australia, then little more than a town, now a city of a third of a million inhabitants.
Edred's working life was spent as a public servant, the last 40 years of it as a officer of the Engineering and Water Supply Department of South Australia, from which he retired upon reaching the age limit.
The occasion of his retirement was marked by the largest gathering ever accorded to a retiring public servant in South Australia.
As well as a long life faithfully devoted to the public interests in his Department, he also performed useful services in public life and for various social charitable and sporting organizations, was a prominent athlete in his younger days )particularly as an oarsman and tennis player) and later in life, when relentless time began to take it's toll, found relaxation in bowls.
He was for a long period a councillor of the City of Unley and later of Brighton (both in Adelaide) and a tireless worker at various times for numberless deserving causes.
His mother, Mrs Kate Hicks' brother, the late Captain Stephen Gibson, with his family left Scilly for South Australia a year or so after the Hicks family. Captain Stephen Gibson was the first captain of "The Lady of the Isles", plying between the Islands and Penzance for many years.
In 1867 Edred's father, Captain Thomas Cook Hicks, was presented by the then President of the United States of America, with a gold watch and a set of binoculars as a tribute to his courage and skill, under circumstances of great danger, in rescuing the crews of the Schooner "C.E. Rosenburg" and the Brig "Star of Faith", American ships stranded at Chilterpec in the Gulf of Mexico.
It is of interest to recall that Mrs Kate Hicks' mother, Elizabeth Gibson, was a member of the May family, and her father Captain May commanded the "S.S. Savannah", the first vessel to cross the Atlantic from England to the United States under steam, as long ago as 1818.
the foregoing particulars have been supplied by Edred's brother James Hicks who visited Scilly for four months in 1933, after an absence in Australia of 57 years.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Address: Francis St, Hyde Park, South Australia. Public Servant, Engineering & Water Supply, Adelaide

Edred married Mona Ethel Maddocks, daughter of John Ford Maddocks and Unknown, on 1 Oct 1898 in Port Pirie, South Australia. (Mona Ethel Maddocks was born on 13 Jan 1872 in Auckland, New Zealand and died on 14 Feb 1970 in Adelaide, South Australia.)