Sicklemore’s family had resided in the Ipswich neighbourhood since the middle of the 16th century. His grandfather was elected one of the bailiffs of the borough in 1601, and his father, also a prominent member of the corporation, served on the county committee in the first years of the Civil War. Sicklemore himself, a practising lawyer, seems to have avoided commitment. He was elected to all the Protectorate Parliaments, though as an opponent of the regime he was not allowed to sit in 1656.4N. Bacon, Annals of Ipswich, 253, 410, 482.
Sicklemore signed the Suffolk petition for a free Parliament in 1660, and his re-election at Harwich was erroneously reported in the London press. He served on the Ipswich delegation which presented Charles II with £100 and a gold cup at the Restoration, and succeeded his wife’s uncle, Nathaniel Bacon, as recorder shortly afterwards. His return for the borough with William Blois at the general election of 1661 was regarded by at least one local Royalist as a rebuff for the Court. Nevertheless under the new charter which he secured for the borough in 1665 he was confirmed in office for life. An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was appointed to only five committees, of which four were on private bills. The other was for the establishment of a special court for London to settle disputes between landlords and tenants after the Great Fire (29 Oct. 1666). He died during the summer recess of 1670, the only member of the family to sit in Parliament.5Suff. and the Gt. Rebellion (Suff. Rec. Ser. iii), 128; Pub. Intell. 2 Apr. 1660; East Anglian, n.s. vi. 264; Add. 25334, ff. 96-97, 104; Add 25335, f. 60; Add. 27396, f. 248; R. Canning, Ipswich Charters, 35.