Grace Hickling

Grace Hickling (10 August 1908 – 30 December 1986) was an English ornithologist and naturalist known for studying wildlife on the Farne Islands, in the North Sea off the Northumberland coast.

Early life and education Hickling was the only daughter of Adam and Grace Anne Watt, her father being an engineer in Newcastle upon Tyne. She attended Harrogate Ladies' College, and after a period at Armstrong College in Newcastle, studied mathematics and geography at Newnham College, Cambridge from 1928 to 1931.

Career Hickling embarked on a teaching career, but was called up to work as an intelligence officer on 1 September 1939, a few days prior to Britain's entry into World War II. Based at the regional war room in Newcastle upon Tyne, she was originally offered the standard salary of £400, until it was discovered that she was a woman and her pay was cut by £100. In the early 1960s, she was heavily involved in discussions around the trial culling of grey seals on the Farne Islands and along the coast of Northumberland.

Family In 1954, Watt married George Hickling, a retired professor from Newcastle University who died just two weeks later.

Achievements and awards Hickling published two books, The Farne Islands: Their History and Wildlife and Grey Seals and the Farne Islands in 1951 and 1962. She served as the naturalists' representative for the Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve at its beginning in 1964, and was on the local committee of the National Trust for the Farne Islands from 1949. In June 1974 she was recognized for her work with the Northumberland Natural History Society by being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. Following her death in 1986, her ashes were scattered in St. Cuthbert's Cove, Inner Farne.