William Hickey (columnist)

"William Hickey" is the pseudonymous byline of a gossip column published in the British newspaper, the Daily Express. It was named after the eighteenth-century diarist William Hickey.

The column was first established by Tom Driberg in May 1933. An existing gossip column was relaunched following the intervention of the Express's proprietor Lord Beaverbrook. It was titled "These Names Make News". Driberg described the new feature as "...an intimate biographical column about ... men and women who matter. Artists, statesmen, airmen, writers, financiers, explorers..."

Historian David Kynaston calls Driberg the "founder of the modern gossip column", which moved away from genteel chit-chat towards commentary on social and political issues. The tone of the column was described by biographer Richard Davenport-Hines as "wry, compassionate, and brimm[ing] with ... open-minded intelligence". Driberg continued to write the column until 1943.

The column has been written by numerous anonymous journalists over the decades. In the 1960s it was written by columnist Nigel Dempster.

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