Solicitor, author, Fellow of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. He was the son of John Bicknell (1746–1787), a barrister, and his wife Sabrina (1756/7–1843; DNB). Bicknell’s father was an associate of Thomas Day (1748–1789; DNB), with whom he co-wrote The Dying Negro (1773). Sabrina Bicknell’s association with Day was rather different. She was the subject of his failed attempt to educate a wife by applying the theories of Rousseau. After the death of her husband, Sabrina Bicknell worked for Charles Burney (1757–1817; DNB), at whose Greenwich school her two sons were educated. John Laurens Bicknell embarked on a legal career and became Solicitor to the Admiralty, succeeding his uncle in the post. His clients included, from 1828, John Soane (1753–1837; DNB). After the latter’s death, Bicknell became a trustee of the Soane Museum. Bicknell published on legal and political affairs and was an occasional poet. His works included Original Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1820) and The Modern Church: A Satirical Poem (1820). Bicknell was acquainted with Edward Hawke Locker and, via this connection, in the summer of 1823 wrote to Southey seeking his opinion of his latest work, probably The Hour of Trial; A Tragedy, published in 1824. Bicknell also sent presentation copies of this and his The Modern Church (1820) to Southey (no. 286 in the sale catalogue of his library).