Happy 200th Birthday, Cornelius! Or how I found real Cornelius Hickey from HMS Terror
200 years ago Cornelius Hickey was baptised.
This could have been a long hate letter to Dan Simmons, but I think Cornelius Hickey deserves all the attention. As I found some information on who the real Hickey was.
Although, I still would need to provide backstory on how I decided to hunt for any information about Mr. Hickey from HMS Terror. My search party started as a therapy to deal with my anger towards Dan Simmons after I read “The Terror” during lockdown. I usually do not mind when famous historical figures portrayed in unappealing way in literature as anyone interested can find information on them with a couple of clicks. But when it came to Cornelius Hickey, on the surface there was no background information provided apart from name, age, rank and place of birth. So whoever reads the book is left with the following: Hickey is a killer, he seduces ship boys as they are easy to manipulate, but of HMS Terror it was Magnus Manson who was just a giant child, Cornelius is also a cannibal and mutineer. And I think this is unfair and secretly hope that the ghost of Cornelius Hickey haunts Dan Simmons.
In both inner monologues and in my rants to my friend I also tried to play the devil’s advocate, assuming that no information could be found about the man, who in historical perspective is nobody. And that Simmons simply was not able to find any information. However, is it really that hard?
So I decided to try to check if it was possible to find ANY information, using the first ancestry site that google offered me. And I think I managed to do it.
The only information available from the crew list of HMS Terror was that a person named Cornelius Hickey, born in Limerick, joined the crew as a caulker’s mate at the age of 24.
Taking into account that I am uncertain about the date the list was made, I assumed that he was 24 at the time the ship sailed on May 19, 1845.
That means that he should have been born in 1820-1821.
To my surprise, I found only one Cornelius Hickey baptized in Limerick either in 1820 or 1821.
On May 18 of 1821, Thomas Hickey and Margaret Beye baptized their son Cornelius in St Mary’s parish in Limerick.
I have not fully mastered the art of reading faded pages with old-fashioned handwriting, so several times I had to rely on transcripts offered by the site, but I was able to clearly read that Cornelius’ godmother was Mary Hickey (I guess his aunt).
His parents got married on November 7, 1818. The transcript said that Margaret’s surname was Boyle, but I blame unreadable handwriting and it looks similar enough to me. In addition, they got married in St. Mary’s church in Limerick, which only proves my point.
What did Cornelius Hickey do between his baptism and the day he went on board HMS Terror? The answer is – he sailed, at least once.
In 1842, he joined the crew of the Belvidera as part of carpenter’s crew. To prove that this was the same Hickey, Mary J Hickey is said to be his mother. First I thought that the name Margaret could have been misspelled or replaced with more common name (I have zero understanding what would have been considered a widely used name). But his godmother’s name was Mary Hickey. And this matches. I guess that by the time Cornelius turned 21 his mother had died. Other relatives could have been listed, but he provided his godmother’s name. So he either had bad relationships with his father or Thomas Hickey had also been dead by 1842. I was unable to find solid information on either of his parents, as I do not know the exact date of birth and there were few people with almost matching data.
Additionally, since at both Belvidera and Terror he sailed as part of carpenter’s crew and taking into the account matching name of mother/godmother it is safe to say that these documents connect to the same person.
What else did Cornelius do? He got married!
On August 31, 1843, Cornelius Hickey married Bridget Gowdy (I had to rely on transcripts here) in St. Mary’s church in Limerick, same parish he was baptized.
What else? Well, Cornelius had at least one child. On August 24, 1844, Cornelius and his wife Bridget baptized their son Thomas, apparently named after grandfather. And it was the same church - St Mary's parish.
In May of 1845, Cornelius Hickey went on board HMS Terror.
And in 2007 Dan Simmons published his novel, making Cornelius Hickey someone who he probably wasn’t, based on… I do not know, maybe a knife? And he decided that Magnus Manson needed to be his lover, based on… maybe another knife with badly carved initials? Was that a reason that Simmons made Manson retarded? Sure, what other reason could be behind poor carving on the knife handle made by Manson compared to one Hickey owned? Apart from the fact that a carpenter should have skills required to carve wood, and AB most likely did not know how to do it.
And why did Dan Simmons had to write about real people from HMS Terror and HMS Erebus and not about fictional characters from HMS Phobos and HMS Deimos?
I will never know, Dan Simmons blocked me on Facebook.
P.S. Being a two-faced person, The Terror series does not make me mad. Maybe I used all my anger on the book, or maybe it is easier for me to distant characters from real people when I see an image.
P.P.S. Fandom.com said the following about Cornelius Hickey: “He had black eyes and hair with fair complexion and a ‘Face marked with the Pox.’ He was brought up to the trade of shipwright.” And I am curious where this information, particularly about appearance, came from.
https://franklin-expedition.fandom.com/wiki/Cornelius_Hickey
P.P.P.S. I understand that probably Dan Simmons’ vision of Captain Crozier was also far from truth. But it is also easier to find information about captains and lieutenants in different sources.
