"William Hickey" is the pseudonymous byline of a gossip column published in the Daily Express, a British newspaper.
[1] An existing gossip column was relaunched following the intervention of the Express's proprietor Lord Beaverbrook.
Artists, statesmen, airmen, writers, financiers, explorers..."[3] Historian David Kynaston calls Driberg the "founder of the modern gossip column",[4] 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".
In the 1970s, the column was referenced in John Cooper Clarke's poem 'You'll Never See A Nipple In The Daily Express', where "William Hickey meets Michael Caine - again and again and again and again".