George Elgar Hicks was born at Lymington in Hampshire on 13 March 1824. He was the second son of a well to do magistrate. His parents encouraged George to become a doctor and he studied medicine at University College in the period 1840-42. However, after three years ‘ardous and disagreeable study’, he decided that he wanted to be an artist. In 1843 he attended Henry Sass’s Academy and in 1844, entered the Royal Academy Schools, where he won a silver medal for his studies from the antique. In 1847 Hicks married Maria Harriss and six of their eight children were born in the following seven years. Hicks produced a variety of subjects including religious scenes, landscapes and his preferred form of genre scenes.  He achieved little success in that period and would later referred to his art at that time as: ‘small and unimportant.’ In 1859 he painted his first large genre painting, Dividend Day: Bank of England (1859; London, Bank of England Museum), a large ‘modern life’ canvas, portraying in great detail, a crowd of investors queueing for their quarterly dividends, and was almost certainly painted to emulate William Powell Frith’s success with Ramsgate Sands (1854; British Royal Collection) and Derby Day (1858; London, Tate). Despite mixed reviews, Dividend Day was one of the most popular paintings at the Academy exhibition of 1859 and Hicks was immediately commissioned by the dealer Henry Wallis to paint another panoramic scene, The General Post Office: One Minute to Six (1860; Museum of London) depicted a romanticised view of the rush to catch the last post at a main post office. Although the critics found the work meretricious and theatrical, and attacked Hicks for ignoring the dingy realities of London life, the public flocked to see it. In this choice of subject, as with some of his other paintings depicting contemporary life, it has been suggested that Hicks was probably inspired by the writings of the noted journalist George Augustus Sala (1828-96). Other important works included: Billingsgate Fish Market (1861) and Changing Homes (1862). The Athenaeum commented upon the significance Hicks’s views of Victorian life would hold for future generations: ‘Mr G E Hicks hit upon a good idea when he resolved to paint for us the scenes which take place at some of the well-known places of business of the City of London… Such pictures, even less well painted than these really are, will be interesting for the future time, and therefore we shall be thankful to get them as creditably executed as [those of Hicks are.]’ Hicks paintings were often of subjects that no other artists attempted, such as the General Post Office and Billingsgate Fish Market. Hicks was an archery enthusiast and as well as painting scenes of the sport, he was awarded an archery medal in 1865 by the Royal Toxophilite Society. In 1863 Hicks sold three archery studies, entitled Stringing, Nocking and Loosing to the dealer H Wallis, which were engraved by W H Simmons.  Wallis liked the paintings so much, he ordered a second, slightly smaller, set the following year. Hicks’ painting An Infant Orphan Election at the London Tavern (1865) depicted a scene in which orphans are being put forward in an election to gain places at The Infant Orphan Asylum at Wanstead. This was one of the more unfortunate consequences of Victorian children’s charities. Subscribers to the Asylum were entitled to one vote for a 10s 6d annual subscription, or two votes for a guinea. Five guineas bought a subscriber life membership with one vote per year. Supporters of the children would try to beg or buy votes from members, even bringing placards along daubed with slogans such as ‘Vote for Harriet Langdon; a case of great disfigurement’ or ‘Annie Lisle Daughter of a Physician’. Members would be more inclined to vote for children they saw as deserving than educate poor children who they saw as getting above their station. By the late 1860s, the popularity of genre painting declined and Hicks began to focus on painting historical subjects, leading to society portraiture in the 1870s. Hicks lost his wife Maria in 1880 and he married Anne Ross in 1884. He retired in the 1890s and died at Odiham in Hampshire on 4 July 1914. Representative examples of Hicks’ work may be found in the collections of the in the Manchester City Art Gallery, the Geffrye Museum, the Museum of London. His Woman’s Mission: Companion to Manhood (1863) may be found in the collection of the Tate.