Rickford, the co-founder of an Aylesbury banking dynasty, continued to sit for his native town, where he was a lifelong resident, aided by a long purse. One of a dying breed of staunchly independent MPs, and the owner of ‘extensive estates’ in the county, in the 1820s he had flirted with the Whig ‘Mountain’ before opposing Catholic relief. His steady support for the Grey ministry’s reform bill drew him into the ranks of the reformers before 1832, but as a protectionist and Ultra Protestant, he subsequently fell out with ministers over their policy towards farmers and the established Church. It was not until 1839, however, that he was listed by Dod as a Conservative.1The Assembled Commons (1837), 151; HP Commons, 1820-32, vi. 958-60; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1839), 156.
At the 1832 general election Rickford offered again for Aylesbury, disclaiming all attachment to party and expressing his determination to remain ‘independent’ and support ‘measures not men’. Riled by his refusal to endorse another reform candidate, the Liberal press mocked his growing association with the county’s leading Tory magnate Lord Chandos, who had taken ‘him into favour and made a magistrate of him’, and poked fun at the ‘aristocratic-leaning character’ of his politics. After an ill-humoured contest, in which he penned a letter to The Times denying ‘false and malicious’ reports of acting in coalition with the Tories, he was returned in first place.2R. Davis, Political Change and Continuity 1760-1885 (1972), 113-14; Morning Chronicle, 17 Dec.; The Times, 24 Dec. 1832.
A silent but regular attender, with a reputation for diligent committee work, Rickford voted steadily against radical initiatives for military reductions, the secret ballot and shorter parliaments in 1833.3A. Dell, “May the voters be free and the representatives independent”: a biographical sketch of William Rickford MP, 1768-1854 (1986), 62. Taking his cue from Chandos, he was in the minorities for inquiries into distress, 21 Mar. 1833, 21 Feb. 1834, currency reform, 24 Apr. 1833, and further tax reductions, 27 Apr. 1833. On 21 June 1833 he attended a meeting of country bankers opposed to the ministry’s plans for renewal of the Bank of England’s charter and making it the ‘sole bank of issue’. He moved a resolution against plans to grant charters to incorporated companies, saying it would ‘create a false and delusive credit’, and joined the protest ‘club’ of country bankers established that day.4Standard, 22 June; Morning Chronicle, 25 June; Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, 29 June 1833. On other issues, he supported shorter slave apprenticeships, 24 July 1833, and the admission of Dissenters to universities, 17 Apr. 1834, but voted against Jewish emancipation, 22 May 1833, 21 May 1834, and for stricter observance of the Sabbath, 1 May 1834.
At that year’s unexpected dissolution Rickford offered again for Aylesbury. Criticised by the local Tory press for his inattention to farming interests, he attended a meeting of Chandos’s Buckinghamshire Agriculture Association, 17 Dec. 1834, and in his election address urged that the ‘distinctions of Whig and Tory ... be buried in oblivion’ and ‘all good men ... unite for a common object’.5Standard, 10 Nov.; Morning Chronicle, 18 Dec. 1834; Bucks. Herald, 17 Jan. 1835, cited in Parliamentary Testbook (1835), 142. The Liberal press were unimpressed. ‘He is one of that very uncertain class of individuals who are eternally boasting that they are of “no party”’, declared the Morning Chronicle, adding:
The truth is, that Mr. Rickford, who originally owed his seat to the efforts of his fellow-townsmen, and for a while was their uncompromising advocate, has of late deeply offended them by a manifest desire to obtain the support of the Tory faction.6Morning Chronicle, 13 Dec. 1834.
After a rowdy contest, in which he was heckled for ‘half-and-half’ politics and accused of being a Tory, he was returned at the head of the poll, with the second votes of many Conservatives.7Morning Chronicle, 10 Jan. 1835; Davis, Political Change and Continuity, 124. Listing him as as one of the ‘Doubtful Men’ a few weeks later, the Liberal press noted that he had ‘voted with the reformers since 1818, but he voted the other day for the three Buckinghamshire Tories’.8Examiner, 8 Feb. 1835.
Rickford rallied behind Peel’s shortlived ministry in the lobbies on the speakership, 19 Feb., address, 26 Feb., and Irish church appropriation, 2 Apr. 1835, earning him a reproof from the reformers of Aylesbury, who censured his conduct at a public meeting, 15 May 1835.9Morning Chronicle, 19 May 1835. He was in Chandos’s minority for repeal of the malt tax, 10 Mar. 1835, and spoke at a local meeting in support of the agriculturalists that summer. Praised by the Conservative press as a ‘covert friend of the Tories’, henceforth he sided with the Conservative opposition to the reappointed Melbourne ministry on most major issues, including English municipal reform and changes to the Irish church.10Morning Post, 10 July 1835. However, he voted in a radical minority for inquiry into the pension list, 19 Apr. 1836. The previous year Dod’s Parliamentary Companion had changed his entry from ‘of Whig principles’ to ‘a moderate reformer’, which it remained until 1839, despite Rickford advising Dod that his opinions were ‘Liberal, and Constitutional; pledges none’.11Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1833), 153; (1835), 157; Dod MSS, vol. iii. f. 931. He was in the majorities against the ballot, 23 June 1836, and inquiry into the corn laws, 16 Mar. 1837. On 23 May 1837, in a division that the local press predicted would lose him any remaining support among Aylesbury’s reformers, he voted against the abolition of church rates.12Davis, Political Change and Continuity, 135; Dell, Rickford, 71.
Rickford nevertheless topped the poll at the 1837 general election, when the Conservative press portrayed him as a ‘sober-minded and honourable Whig’, who had been ‘compelled to declare himself a Conservative’, owing to the Whig ministry’s collusion with ‘English revolutionists and Irish papists’.13Morning Post, 29 July 1837. He was one of the ‘Conservatives who usually vote with Sir Robert Peel’ who supported an inquiry into the civil list, 8 Dec. 1837, and was appointed to the subsequent select committee, 18 Dec. 1837.14Morning Post, 11 Dec. 1837. (He also served on another on bank notes, 11 Feb. 1841.) He voted steadily against Irish church appropriation and inquiry into the corn laws thereafter, was listed as a Conservative by Dod in 1839, and helped to vote the Whigs out of office, 4 June 1841.15Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1839), 156. See also R. Stewart, The Foundations of the Conservative Party (1978), 378.
At the 1841 general election Rickford, by now in his 73rd year, retired, finding that the 50 mile journey from his home to Westminster ‘had become an increasing burden’.16Morning Post, 8 June 1841; Dell, Rickford, 71. He had been elected as a ‘man of the people’ and ‘the poor man’s friend’, carped the Liberal Aylesbury News, but ‘no sooner ... did he find his vote secure, than he commenced coquetting with the great, giving stray votes to the Tories’.17Aylesbury News, 5 June 1841, citied in Dell, Rickford, 71-2. A more favourable historical assessment suggests that Rickford’s ‘claim to political independence’, far from being the increasingly common rhetorical and token device of this period, was genuine.18Davis, Political Change and Continuity, 113-4. Any remaining doubt about his eventual allegiance was removed by his casting a plumper for the Protectionist candidate John Deering at Aylesbury in 1847.19Davis, Political Change and Continuity 176.
Rickford remained head of the Old Bank in Aylesbury until about 1850, when his kinsman (through his sister’s marriage) Zachariah Daniel Hunt took over. He died ‘the oldest elector on the voters’ list’ at his Aylesbury home in January 1854.20Dell, Rickford, 73. By his will, dated 5 Apr. 1852, the bulk of his estate passed to his wife, with remainder to his only surviving child Elizabeth Harriet, who in 1821 had married Sir Astley Paston Cooper, of Gadesbridge Park, Hertfordshire.21Gent. Mag. (1854), i. 321; Prob. 11/2186/149.