Robert Hichens was born on 16 September 1882 in Newlyn, Cornwall. He was the son of a fisherman, Philip Hichens and Rebecca Hichens and was the eldest of a family of nine. By 1906 he was shown on his marriage certificate to be a “master mariner”. He had served as Quartermaster on many vessels but never in the North Atlantic. He had worked aboard mail boats and liners of the Union Castle and British India lines. Immediately prior to Titanic he worked on the troop ship Dongola sailing back and forth to Bombay. On Titanic he was one of the 6 Quartermasters.
On the night of 14 April 1912 he was at the ship’s wheel when the warning came from the lookout that an iceberg had been spotted ahead of the ship. When the order came to hard a’starboard he immediately swung the wheel as far as it would go. Later, Second Officer Lightoller told Lookout Fred Fleet to get into Lifeboat 6 on the port side and put Robert Hichens in charge of that boat with the order that they were to make for the lights that could be seen in the distance.
During the First War he served in the Royal Naval Reserve and in a Labour Corps. By 1919 he was working as a third officer on a small vessel, Magpie, out of Hull. Towards the end of the 1920’s he and his family moved to Torquay, where he purchased a motor vessel, Queen Mary, for £160 from a Torquay acquaintance, Frederick Henley, and started a boat charter business. He borrowed money for the purchase but due to a poor season in 1931 he was unable to complete the repayment so the boat was taken from him to settle the debt. By the end of 1931 his wife and children had left and he and moved to Southampton, and for the next 12 months he toured the country unsuccessfully looking for work. Toward the end of 1933 he had become a heavy drinker and after two years brooding on his misfortune was determined to kill Frederick Henley who in Hitchens’s eyes was the main cause of his current predicament. He made an unsuccesful attempt but was then taken to the Police station in a semi-conscious state and said, amongst other things ‘Is he dead? I hope he is’ and ‘He is a dirty rat, I would do it again if I had a chance, I intended to kill him and myself, too. He has taken my living away.’ He was released from prison in 1937 and died on 23 September 1940 aboard the cargo ship English Trader.