RICKFORD, William (1768-1854), of Aylesbury, Bucks.

In 1797, Rickford founded the Aylesbury Old Bank with his father, who was said to have made ‘a very handsome fortune’Gent. Mag. (1803), i. 485. from his local grocery, chandling and soap-boiling businesses, and was active in local banking concerns until 1850. At the general election of 1818 he contested the borough on an independent platform and destroyed the Cavendish interest. He neither signed the requisition to Tierney nor joined Brooks’s, but divided consistently and regularly in opposition to government and supported Tierney’s major censure motion, 18 May 1819. He voted for the extension of the franchise at Penryn, 22 June, but not for Burdett’s parliamentary reform motion, 1 July. In the emergency session of 1819 he voted for the amendment to the address, 24 Nov., for inquiry into the state of the nation, 30 Nov., and against the seditious meetings bill, 6 and 13 Dec., the seizure of arms bill, 14 Dec., and the sureties clause of the newspaper stamp duties bill, 20 Dec. He is not known to have spoken in the House before 1820. He died 14 Jan. 1854.