BECKFORD, William (1709-70), of Fonthill, Wilts.

Beckford, who had inherited from his brother large estates in Jamaica,See list of landholders in Jamaica 1754, CO142/31 and Add. 12436. sat for Shaftesbury on the interest of the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury, with whom he seems to have closely co-operated in politics for some time.See e.g. Dodington, Diary, 22 Mar. 1751, and Gent. Mag. 1752, p. 89.

In 1752 he took the step which was to condition his future career. With the support of Tory allies in the House and in the City of London, he took up by redemption the freedom of the Ironmongers’ Company,22 June, Gent. Mag. 1752, p. 286. and a few days later was elected alderman of Billingsgate ward preliminary to standing for the City at the general election of 1754.24 June, ibid. The City normally elected men who were not only citizens but intimately connected with its affairs. Though Beckford claimed to be a merchant on the strength of his business in buying and selling for his plantations, and later boasted that ‘his family were citizens, and some of them had borne the highest offices for a century past’,Public Advertiser, 30 Sept. 1762. he was the first politician whose interests lay largely outside the City to seek to break through this custom. In 1754, returned third on the list after a hot contest, he thanked the electors for the trust which they had shown him despite the short time he had had the honour of being known to them, and the prejudices that had been laid against him.Ibid. 8 May 1754. He was in all very successful at this general election, boasting to Bedford that he had satisfied his ambition of having ‘as many friends elected into the new Parliament as I well could, with prudence in respect to my fortune’, and that he had ‘carried three cities and two boroughs’. (London for himself, Bristol, after a great struggle, for his brother Richard, and Salisbury for his brother Julines; Petersfield, for which he was returned, he handed on to Sir John Philipps, and at Hindon he brought in James Dawkins). His appeal to the Duke of Bedford for a seat for a third brother was, however, unsuccessful.Bedford Corresp. ii. 145.

An indefatigable speaker in the House from the beginning, he supported Tory measures; in March 1755 took a prominent part in meetings of the Tories at the Horn Tavern;Namier, ‘Country Gentlemen in Parliament’, Personalities and Powers, 68-71. and as late as January 1760 acted as spokesman for them with Pitt.George to W. Lyttelton, 9 Dec. 1756, Lyttleton Mems. ii. 543; Newcastle to Hardwicke, 26 Jan. 1760, Add. 32901, f. 479. But in 1754 a paragraph in the Public Advertiser alleged that at the Bristol election he had called himself a Whig;Public Advertiser, 25 Apr. 1754. See also Walpole, Mems. Geo. II, i. 357. on 7 Mar. 1763 he declared in the House: ‘I am, Sir, a Whig, and have the utmost abhorrence of passive obedience’;Harris’s ‘Debates’. and by 1769 could accuse others of ‘rank Tory doctrines’.15 Apr. 1769, Cavendish’s Debates, i. 370. Though working so closely in his earlier years with the Tory country gentlemen, and, like them repudiating any desire for office, he differed from them not only in his colonial and commercial interests, but in the urgency of his desire to find a leader who would implement the policies he supported, and in the steps he was prepared to take to this end. Disappointed, like others of his group, by the death of the Prince of Wales in 1751, in 1753-4 he went some way to enrolling himself under the banner of the Duke of Bedford; with his backing started a paper, the Protestor (run by Ralph till November 1753, when he went over to the Administration);Dodington, Diary, 235-6, 243, 251; Bedford Corresp. ii. 127, 135; Walpole, Mems. Geo. II, i. 300-301. and on 4 June 1754 wrote to the Duke: ‘As the eyes of most people are looking toward your Grace as the head of an Opposition founded on true patriot principles. ...’Bedford Corresp. ii. 150. In 1755 he entertained hopes of the leadership of Henry Fox; even when speaking against the ministers on 21 Nov. he owned ‘he had a great opinion of the abilities of Mr. Fox which if exerted well should have his support’.Jas. West to Newcastle, Add. 32861, f. 55; see also Lyttelton Mems. ii. 543. Then—when the stress of war brought Pitt to the fore—he attached himself firmly and permanently to this new leader. ‘I intend’, he wrote on 6 Nov. 1756, ‘to act as one of your private soldiers without commission.’Chatham Corresp. i. 185-6.

In his enthusiastic support of Pitt as war minister from 1756 onwards, Beckford assisted him partly by frequent speeches (which were often ill-heard, and were described as ‘rambling and irregular’, but which also contained ‘some things pertinent’),Harris’s ‘Debates’, 12 May 1762. partly by advice and the collection of expert opinions on America and the West Indies,e.g. Beckford to Pitt, 11 Sept. 1758, Chatham Corresp. i. 352 seq.; mem. from M. Dzeganowski which Beckford offered to present, Chatham mss. but mostly by the hold he gained over popular opinion in the City of London and by the skill he acquired in bringing it to bear on political questions. In return Pitt helped him in the House on matters concerning the West Indian interest—‘without presence’, Beckford wrote to him, 19 Feb. 1760, ‘I shall not dare to enter into the debate, for in this question I am the object of envy, hatred and all uncharitableness’.Chatham mss. See also Walpole, Mems. Geo. II, ii. 350. Pitt rallied to his aid also on other occasions.Climenson, Eliz. Montagu, ii. 127-8. As early as 1758 Beckford began to press on Pitt his views as to a satisfactory peace: he urged the importance of retaining Canada—there is no evidence of his having favoured the return to France of the sugar islands in the interest of English sugar producers, as was alleged at the time.

In 1761 he made no further attempt to extend his parliamentary interest, which had suffered by the death of Richard, the most active of his brothers, but stood again for the City, where another contest took place. He described the nomination meeting of the livery as ‘very troublesome and at the commencement a little tumultuous’ where ‘Mr. Beckford had the honour to have those for enemies who are not well-wishers of Mr. Pitt’;Beckford to Pitt, 5 Mar. [1761], Chatham mss. his appeal for assistance to Bedford was rejected, but he was said to have had some backing from Administration (for a rival candidate complained ‘there is letters from the office of Ordnance and the Board of Works in Beckford’s favour only’);S. Fludyer to Kinnoull, 30 Mar. 1761, Add. 32921, f. 190. For Beckford’s approach to Bedford, see Bedford mss 43, f. 178. and he was once again returned third of the four successful candidates.

Pitt’s resignation in October 1761 brought Beckford back into the opposition to which he was accustomed, and presented him with the difficult task of reconciling the popular elements in the City to his leader’s acceptance of a pension for himself and a title for his wife;See e.g. T. Birch to Royston, 27 Oct. 1761, Rockingham Mems. i. 49. a letter from Pitt to Beckford explaining the situation was published in the press, and Beckford persuaded Pitt to attend the lord mayor’s feast—a refusal ‘would damp the ardour and public spirit of every well wisher to his country’.Chatham mss. It was said that ‘mobs were hired by Mr. Beckford ... to huzza and clap them as they passed along the streets’.Narrative in Mrs. Grenville’s hand, Grenville Pprs. i. 415; Walpole, Mems. Geo. III, i. 70. Beckford’s campaign was so successful that when he was elected lord mayor in October 1762, it was considered ‘a mark of their good-will to his friend Mr. Pitt’,Walpole, Mems. Geo. III, i. 153. though he owed it as much to his own adroitness. He carried out the formal duties of the lord mayor with splendour, made use of the position to support the views of his friends in Parliament, and fanned the fires of discontent in the City. He opposed the peace preliminaries; on 25 Nov. spoke vehemently against them, and, according to George Onslow, was heard as never in his life;Newcastle to Hardwicke, 29 Nov.; Yorke, Hardwicke, iii. 438. tried to speak again on 9 Dec.: he ‘rose, but could not be heard’;Harris’s ‘Debates’. and both on the 9th and 10th voted in the minority against them; and in 1763, when addresses of thanks were being sought throughout the country, he refused to call the livery together in common hall to vote one.T. Walpole to Newcastle, 12 May 1763, Add. 32948, f. 269. When the majority of the court of aldermen voted an address on their own, he did not accompany them to present it.Repertory Bk. of the court of aldermen, vol. 167, pp. 280 seq. And though he was personally unfriendly to Wilkes, whose North Briton attacked him in 1762-3,e.g. on 13 Nov. 1762 and 26 Mar. 1763. he took up his cause, by the end of 1763 was outwardly at least on friendly terms with himGrenville Pprs. ii. 158. and spoke and voted on 17-18 Feb. 1764 against general warrants. It was at this time that Beckford began to earn the reputation of a demagogue, ‘the scavenger ... to throw dirt upon Government’.Harris’s ‘Debates’, 16 Nov. 1763. On the other hand, his speech at the end of his mayoralty was said by Charles Townshend to be ‘no bad speech. ... It is composed upon good ideas of taste, and firm and explicit, without being indecent or warm.’Townshend to Temple, 3 Oct. 1763, Grenville Pprs. ii. 133.

In August-September 1763 he was employed as an intermediary in an attempt to persuade Pitt to return to power (a duty which he performed with goodwill and whose failure he openly deplored);See Chatham Corresp. ii. 235-6; Grenville Pprs. ii. 201-2, 214-18.again in March 1764 an attempt by him to see Bute at Luton raised some speculation;Grenville Diary, 7 Mar. 1764; ibid. ii. 404. but with Pitt withdrawing from the political field in 1764-5, and the Wilkite agitation dying down in the City, Beckford’s political importance declined. He was active in the House, however, on all matters concerning the West Indies and the militia (of which he had been an ardent supporter since 1759), and he could claim the somewhat rare distinction of opposing Grenville’s Stamp Act both in 1764 when it was adumbrated, and in 1765 when it was introduced.Harris’s ‘Debates’. When Pitt re-emerged as a political force and supported the Rockinghams over the repeal of the Act, Beckford spoke and voted on their side;For a report of his speech, 17 Jan. 1766, see report of debate in T1/446/134 and Harris’s ‘Debates’. but he viewed with much less favour their proposals for a free port in the West Indies, and persuaded Pitt to oppose it at first, though he did not succeed in carrying his leader very far with him in what proved an unpopular direction.Beckford to Pitt, 18 Apr. 1766, Chatham mss; Sackville to Irwin, 25 Apr. 1766, HMC 9th Rep. pt. 3, p. 24; Bateson, Newcastle Letters, 58-59.

The formation of the Chatham Administration gave him another experience of supporting Government, and even a short-lived prominence in the House when Chatham chose him to introduce his attack on the territorial rights of the East India Company in Bengal. The collapse and withdrawal of Chatham left him, however, without instructions, and without support except from Shelburne; and after May 1767 the matter was out of his hands.See Sutherland, E. I. Co. and in 18th cent. Politics ch. vi. In the debate on the embargo on the export of corn, 11 Nov. 1766, he supported Administration, making an unfortunate reference to the value of a ‘dispensing power’ which he never altogether lived down;See Grenville to Temple, 18 Nov. 1766, Grenville Pprs. iii. 341-2. and he voted with them on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767, because he considered ‘that relief ought to be given to the poor man, in preference to the opulent land-holder’.Public Advertiser, 22 Mar. 1768. On the other hand he opposed them, 15 May 1767, on the measures to force the American Colonies to supply necessaries to the British troops there.Beckford to Chatham, 29 Apr. 1767, Chatham Corresp. iii. 251.

In 1768 Beckford prepared for the forthcoming general election by introducing a bill on 26 Jan. to force Members to take an oath on their return that they had not used bribery in their elections, a measure viewed with favour by some country gentlemen, but attacked by Burke and Dowdeswell and abandoned in committee. He voted with Administration against the nullum tempus bill, 17 Feb. 1768, as he later maintained, on principle,Cavendish’s Debates, i. 241. but during the general election of that year he was attacked in the press by the interests in the City usually associated with Administration, and after the resignation of Chatham and Shelburne was once more in opposition, especially on the American question. In the election for the City he was again returned third on the list. The contest was a confused one and made more so by the candidature of Wilkes, and while none of the candidates cooperated with him, Beckford and Barlow Trecothick, both standing in the popular interest, found it wise to treat him ‘with much civility’.Walpole, Mems. Geo. III, iii. 127.

Wilkes’s triumphant return for Middlesex foreshadowed the rise of a new force in the City, where the measures taken by Administration raised a fury. Since Wilkes was serving a term of imprisonment and could not personally lead the following which had sprung up round him, Beckford was able for a time to enjoy the fruits of Wilkes’s enterprise. Though he did not disguise his personal dislike of Wilkes,Cavendish’s Debates, i. 47 and 228. and never joined the Supporters of the Bill of Rights Society, he soon found that an appearance of goodwill towards Wilkes was necessary. While as late as 14 Nov. 1768 he had declared in the House that he was ‘tired of Wilkes and Liberty’, on 23 Jan. 1769 he said, ‘I shall move an address to his Majesty to pardon Mr. Wilkes’; and on 27 Jan., that ‘no man has been more persecuted than he has been’.Ibid. 47, 117, 121. Moreover his two new coadjutors in the City, James Townsend and John Sawbridge, were at this time ardent Wilkites. On 10 Feb. 1769 Beckford assisted the livery to draw up instructions to their representatives;Public Advertiser, 11 Feb. 1769. and on 25 Apr. he supported in the court of aldermen the eligibility of Wilkes to sit in Parliament;W. P. Treloar, Wilkes and the City, 73. on 24 June he was received with acclamation by the livery,Rockingham Mems. ii. 100-1. when a petition to the Crown on the Middlesex election was brought forward; and on 6 July he was among those presenting it.

On 6 Oct. 1769 Beckford’s supporters in the City put forward his name and that of Trecothick for lord mayor,Beckford to Shelburne, 24 Oct. 1769, Lansdowne mss. and the court of aldermen, believing his statement that he would not stand, elected him only to find to their indignation, that he withdrew his refusal at the instance of the livery.Common Hall Bk. 8 f. 148 seq. Cf. Public Advertiser. His second mayoralty, though as splendid as his first, was thus stormy from its beginning, and entirely partisan in its character: the majority of the aldermen refused to attend the mayor’s feast; of the Administration only Lord Chancellor Camden was present; the Opposition was there in force.

Beckford, backed by enthusiastic City supporters, enjoyed for the last few months of his life an unusual degree of independence from his leaders in politics. He even tried to force on them his own programme of parliamentary reform, based on the traditional aspirations of the ‘country party’ but reinforced with the somewhat sharper radicalism rising in the City. He arranged a grand dinner for the Opposition leaders of all parties on 22 Mar. 1770, at which he hoped to get their agreement to a scheme he had drawn up and given to Horne to put into shape. According to Horne, when Rockingham and his friends learnt this, they ‘flatly refused any engagement; and Mr. Beckford as flatly swore they should then “eat none of his broth”’; but ‘he was prevailed upon by—[Chatham] to accept the position’,C. A. Stephens, Mems. of John Horne Tooke, i. 388. Chatham having written to him on the 10th that Rockingham, Temple, and himself were ‘equally of opinion that no new matters should be opened or agitated at or after the convivium’.Chatham Corresp. iii. 431, n.1.

Apart from these attempts Beckford chiefly occupied himself in following up the City’s petition to the Crown of 1769. On 6 Mar. 1770 he carried through the livery a strongly-worded remonstrance against the neglect of their petition,Public Advertiser, 7-15 Mar. 1770. from which the court of aldermen dissociated themselves14 Mar. 1770, ibid. and which, when presented, called forth a rebuke from the King, and an address of disapprobation from both Houses of Parliament. In the Commons debate on this address Beckford defended himself and the City;15 Mar. 1770, Cavendish’s Debates, i. 520. and, unabashed, organized a further remonstrance. It was more moderate in expression, but when presenting it on 23 May he took the unprecedented step of haranguing the King on the misdeeds of his ministers.The speech was impromptu, but what purported to be versions of it were printed widely in the press (e.g. Public Advertiser, 24 May). Horne Tooke later claimed that he had written it (Mems. i. 157); and some have attempted to deny that it was given at all—but of this there can be no doubt. This speech, which called forth praise from both Chatham and Wilkes, marked the climax of Beckford’s popularity. How he would have followed it up, and whether he would have been able to maintain his personal ascendancy now that Wilkes (since 18 Apr. 1770) was free and able to assert his influence, it is impossible to say. For Beckford, on 14 June reported ill of a neglected cold, died on 21 June.

His reputation in the City stood so high at his death that a statue was voted him in Guildhall, inscribed with what was believed to be his speech to the King; and the slightest criticism in the eulogies lavished on him was resented.e.g. the recorder’s speech on 22 June at the meeting to elect a new mayor, Public Advertiser, 23 June 1770. His death was considered a grave blow to Chatham, and a rumour went round (quite unfounded) that he had ‘forced himself into his [Beckford’s] house and got away all the letters he had written to that demagogue’.Walpole, Mems. George III, iv. 104-5. Hints in the press that Beckford had left money to Chatham and Wilkes were equally unfounded. So too was the popular estimate of the fortune he left, though it was large. Statements in the press estimated his son’s inheritance at more than £48,000 p.a.;London Chron. 23-26 June 1770. he himself had boasted in 1770 that it would be over £40,000 p.a.;HMC 2nd Rep. 25. it was in fact about £27,000 p.a.London Chron. 1-4 June 1771.

All his contemporaries agreed in judging Beckford a strange and contradictory character, and his enemies did not fail to point out the contrast between his declamations on liberty in England and his position as a great slave-owner in Jamaica,Public Advertiser, 18 Nov. 1769. and the irregularities of his private life (which he boastfully exaggerated) called forth some criticism. Walpole wrote in exasperation after his death: ‘The papers make one sick with talking of that noisy vapouring fool, as they would of Algernon Sidney’;To Lord Strafford, 9 July 1770. but his more considered verdict was also unfavourable:

He had boldness, promptness, spirit, a heap of confused knowledge, displayed with the usual ostentation of his temper, and so uncorrected by judgement that hisd absurdities were made but more conspicuous by his vanity. Under a jovial style of good homour he was tyrannic in Jamaica ... and under an appearance of prodigality, interested. On the other side, the excesses of his factious behaviour were founded neither on principle nor on rancour. Vainglory seemed to be the real motive of all his actions.Mems. Geo. III, iv. 104.

On the other hand, he sought no private gain in politics, appears genuinely, if if naïvely to have believed in the shibboleths he propounded, and Chatham seems to have valued his support. Some years after his death Chatham told Beckford’s son that his father had been ‘an individual of great importance in politics, because of his uncommon popularity in the City of London, and the figure he made in the House of Commons’, though he added that ‘from the warmth of his character he was apt to overshoot himself in council’.Cyrus Redding, Mems. of Wm. Beckford [junior] i. 87. Though this book is highly inaccurate on Wm. Beckford sen. this episode would seem to derive from Wm. Beckford jun. and to be worthy of credence. His career is of interest because it provides the link between the ‘country party’ of George II’s reign and the radicalism of the City in the 1770s, between Sir John Barnard and John Wilkes.