He traded glassware and ceramics from Staffordshire, the seat of England's pottery industry, and had commercial headquarters in the port cities of London and Liverpool.

[2] His son, William Pickman Hicks, moved to Cadiz in 1810 to trade with these products in the city but died in 1822 without having much success.

Charles married William's daughter, Maria Josefa Pickman y Martinez de la Vega.

[4] He started a project in 1837 with his brother-in-law, Guillermo Aponte y Martinez de la Vega, to found a ceramics factory.

[5] After the ecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizabal, he leased the Carthusian Monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas (which was empty) with the intention of starting his ceramics manufacturing business just as his father had done in England.