G. W. Hickling was a member of the chorus on tour with Mr. D'Oyly Carte's "C" (Repertory) Company in the spring of 1885. A Mr. Hickling, quite possibly the same gentleman, was a chorister at the Savoy for the first production of The Gondoliers in December 1889.

In 1890 he visited South America as a chorister with Edwin Cleary's English Comic Opera Company, appearing in Gilbert & Sullivan and other works in Buenas Aires, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay.