On 21 June 1915 Perth’s The Daily News published the following tribute to William Hamilton Nicoll. “In many ways … the community is the poorer for the death of Will Nicoll— ‘Nick’ and ‘Jock’ as he was variously called, ‘Jock’ because of his association at friendly socials with Hany Lauder’s song, “Stop yer Tickling, Jock,” and ‘Nick’ from the familiar satanic signature to his humorous drawings. For many years he was a prominent and highly-respected member, of the Fremantle British Association Football Club, being at his best about as good a half back as ever the State saw, and never an inter-district match in those days took place without him.
His company always made for harmony and pleasure, as his fount of merriment never ran dry. The old Bohemian Sketch Club, that was wont to pass happy evenings in the old WA Art Society’s room in Hamburg Chambers, had an earnest worker in ‘Nick,’ who could not only do his share of covering the walls—with things worth looking at, but could fill a place on the musical programme that for genuine hilarity and honest fun was second to none. Vale! Nick.
News of Nicoll’s death was also reported in the town of his birth in Dundee’s People Journal on 19 June 1915.
Dundee Journalist’s Death. Mr John M. Nicoll, 7 Paradise Road, of the firm of Messrs George Girdwood & Company, stationers, has received the sad intelligence of the death in action of his son Private William Hamilton Nicoll, of the 12th Battalion Australian Expeditionary Force. Private Nicoll, who was 33 years of age, was a journalist on the special staff of the Perth (Australia) “Truth” when war broke out, and, fired by the call for volunteers, he at once enlisted in the 12th Battalion. He spent six months in Egypt undergoing training, and then proceeded to the Gallipoli Peninsula, in which he was killed. He had been nine years in Australia, and was highly esteemed in the town of his adoption, in the affairs of which, as befitted a member of his profession, he took a keen interest. Before emigrating, he was well known in Dundee athletic circles and attained a considerable reputation at the Gymnasium as a long leaper and high jumper.