LOCKHART, John Ingram (1765-1835), of Sherfield House, Romsey, Hants and Great Haseley House, Oxon.

Lockhart, a loquacious, talented and successful barrister, and conscientious parliamentarian, was defeated at Oxford in 1818 by the resurgent Blenheim interest, which he had himself overturned in 1812. He had weakened his own position in the constituency through his support for the corn laws, the property tax and repressive legislation, and by failing to pay his election bills. HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 327. At the Oxfordshire county meeting called to vote a loyal address to the regent, 12 Nov. 1819, he likened ‘the secret conspiracies of the radical reformers, and the mysterious and concerted watchwords by means of which their innovating counsels were carried into effect, to the kindred operation of the Black Tribunal which had heretofore operated in Germany’. He argued that annual parliaments and universal suffrage would make stable government impossible, and dramatically recalled the horrors of the French Revolution:

It was not unusual to tie a virgin back to back with her lover, and then, after every indignity and abomination that could sicken the heart and revolt our nature, to throw them together into the Loire - and this, in the wretched slang of this polluted nation, was denominated a republican marriage! Jackson’s Oxford Jnl. 13 Nov. 1819.

At the general election of 1820, when one of the Members for Oxford retired, he offered again, professing independence and resting his pretensions on his previous parliamentary conduct. He became involved in a contest with the sitting Blenheim Member and a leading equity lawyer of extreme Tory views. On the hustings, he deplored ‘the blasphemous, seditious, and assassinating temper of the times’ and declared that he would

strive to direct his political conduct in the spirit of that temperate, constitutional wisdom which aims at the security of liberty, not the infringement of it, and which might preserve our rights and privileges by guarding them from the canker of licentious abuse.

He finished in second place, well behind the newcomer, but comfortably ahead of the Blenheim man, who retired after three days. Ibid. 26 Feb., 4, 11 Mar. 1820.

Lockhart pursued an independent and idiosyncratic line in the 1820 Parliament, where he frequently intervened in debate, especially on legal subjects. He hoped that Lord Althorp’s proposed bill to amend the Insolvent Debtors Act, 2 May 1820, would deal harshly with offenders guilty of inflicting ‘severe personal injuries’. He saw no reason to bring prisoners confined in the Fleet for contempt of chancery under the review of an inferior judge, 31 May; but on 20 June he objected to the Liverpool ministry’s king’s bench proceedings bill, designed to extend nisi prius hearings, arguing that it would create ruinous expense for litigants and overwhelm the chief justice. He was a teller for the minority of eight against the measure. He called for the exchequer court to be opened to all attorneys, 7 July. The Times, 8 July 1820. On 16 June he advocated the establishment of a ‘vigorous police force’ to take a tougher line with loiterers and complained that conditions in Millbank penitentiary were too luxurious: ‘when he saw that with improved prisons and new charities, crimes were increasing, he felt that the country was losing its way on an amiable system’. He linked the cost of Millbank, which he put at £100 per prisoner, with the argument that ‘Parliament, unless in cases of urgent necessity, ought not to vote an additional shilling to increase the burdens of the people’, 19 June. He had no patience with Maxwell’s motion for inquiry into distress among cotton weavers, 29 June, when he said that it would ‘only serve to hold out false hopes’ and encourage equally deserving groups, especially the agriculturists, to make impossible demands, dismissed the proposal to tax absentees and all ‘plans of spade-husbandry’ and contended that ‘time alone and patience’ would bring respite. He promised support for Parnell’s proposed bill to deal with Irish tithes, 5 July. On the report of the Grantham election committee, 12 July, he thought that a resolution declaring the illegality of payments to out-voters under the fiction of expenses was unnecessary and would not bind the courts. Next day he presented and endorsed petitions against any alteration of the timber duties and approved the offences at sea bill, which would ‘prevent much inhumanity’. Ibid. 14 July 1820. On 18 July 1820 he came out strongly against the barrack agreement bill, of which he had previously approved:

In the present dense state of the population, when the activity of the public mind was increased through the medium of the press, and when the extension of education had opened inlets to general knowledge, and the pressure of taxation had created discontent, he thought it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the metropolis, that an armed force of some kind should be kept on foot.

Yet he saw no reason why that force should be provided exclusively by the army, housed in permanent barracks, and put the case for the creation of armed bands of respectable citizens. He unsuccessfully divided the House against the third reading.

On 17 Oct. 1820 Lockhart condemned the bill of pains and penalties against Queen Caroline as

a flagrant violation of Magna Charta, a proceeding fatal to the liberty and security of the country ... vexatiously protracted, when no doubt could remain of Her Majesty’s innocence, like a wounded snake, ‘dragging its slow length along’, unfit to live, and yet unwilling to die.

He may have been at the Oxfordshire meeting called to vote a loyal address to the king, 22 Jan. 1821, when a Whig amendment was carried; but if so he remained silent. Ibid. 23 Jan.; Jackson’s Oxford Jnl. 27 Jan.1821. In the House, 24 Jan., he demanded the restoration of the queen’s name to the liturgy as an act of justice and ‘healing’:

He had hitherto in general supported ministers. He had supported them throughout the war, which by their wisdom, fortitude, and perseverance, they had brought to so triumphant a conclusion ... but he doubted whether they understood the arts of peace as well as those of war.

He voted for the restoration, 26 Jan., 13 Feb., when he again spoke on the subject; but he abstained from the division on the opposition censure motion, 6 Feb. On 9 Feb. he said that ‘the most rigid economy on the part of ministers’ was the only solution to distress, assuming that a reversion to the old currency system or a redistribution of taxes were out of the question. That day he was in the minority against renewal of the sugar duties, and he presented further petitions against interference with the timber duties, 23 Feb. The Times, 24 Feb. 1821. He could not see how a change in the method of taking the corn averages would relieve agricultural distress, 26 Feb. He presented petitions for relief from Richmond, Yorkshire, 1 Mar., and Hereford, 6 Mar. Ibid. 2, 7 Mar. 1821. He spoke and voted for repeal of the tax on husbandry horses, 5 Mar., warning ministers that if they did not acknowledge the severity of distress, ‘they would be obliged at last to yield by necessity, what they were not now disposed to concede as a boon’. He voted for Maberly’s resolution on the state of the revenue, 6 Mar., and to reduce the army by 10,000 men, 15 Mar., observing that ‘the House acted with regard to the public expenditure like a prodigal, who first determined to spend a certain sum, and then proceeded to consider how he should get it’. He voted for repeal of the additional malt duty, 21 Mar., 3 Apr., and on the latter occasion condemned the system whereby fundholders did not pay their fair share of the tax burden and mocked Vansittart’s maladroit financial expedients: ‘he was speaking on behalf of helpless millions, who must be reduced to the depths of misery unless saved by the wisdom of Parliament’. He did not object to the disfranchisement of Grampound, 12 Feb., but was hostile to the proposal to give Leeds, its possible replacement, a scot and lot franchise, which would be ‘injurious to the mixed monarchical form of the British government’. At the same time, he ‘felt that the representation ... stood upon too narrow a basis to shield the people, or support the just rights and dignity of the crown; and he should support any plan which had a tendency to give greater effect to individual property’. He defended Justice Best against Davison’s charges, 23 Feb., but spoke and voted for the reception of Broadhurst’s petition complaining of his treatment in Lancaster gaol, 7 Mar. He saw ‘many solid objections’ to Martin’s proposed capital crimes defence bill, 26 Feb. That day he chaired a London meeting called to establish a Society for the Prosecution of Felons. Oxford University and City Herald, 3 Mar. 1821. He gave a cautious welcome to Althorp’s bill to remove litigation over trifling sums from the main courts, 15 Mar., but was unhappy with the plan to create new county tribunals to deal with work which he thought could be entrusted to quarter sessions. He supported the Irish tithes leasing bill later that day. The Times, 16 Mar. 1821. He paired against Catholic relief, which was anathema to most of his constituents, 28 Feb., and on 16 Mar. presented Oxford council’s hostile petition. Ibid. 17 Mar. 1821. He approved indemnification of genuine American loyalists, but not of mere speculators, 21 Mar. He was against any alteration of the game laws, as proposed by Lord Cranborne, 5 Apr. After an apparent absence from the House of several weeks, Lockhart voted in minorities on the Barbados pension fund, 24 May, to equalize the rates of interest on Irish and British treasury bills, 30 May, and to reduce the barracks grant, 31 May, when he again accused ministers of disregarding agricultural distress. The following day he voted against the lottery proposals and returned to his themes of retrenchment and a fairer distribution of taxation. He voted against the appointment of Thomas Frankland Lewis* to the Irish revenue commission, 15 June, and spoke and voted against making any additional grant to the duke of Clarence, 18 June. On 24 May he said that Chetwynd’s proposed vagrancy bill would only continue the present ‘destructive system’, which overlooked the need to inculcate principles of self-reliance in beggars. He saw no prospect of a reduction in poor rates under the current laws, and on 20 June argued that their effect was to demoralize the poor. He blamed chancery delays on the mechanism of the court and called for inquiry into means of speeding up the processing of minor disputes, 30 May. He objected to the exceptions made in the forgery punishment mitigation bill for offences against the Bank of England, which would make the notes of country banks more tempting targets, 4 June. He presented a petition against alteration of the navigation laws, 18 June 1821.

On the address, 7 Feb. 1822, Lockhart, claiming that he ‘did not attribute any callosity of heart to ministers, but [that] he believed their judgement was unsound’, repeated his appeal for ‘speedy measures of relief’ to avert ‘the total ruin of the agricultural interest’, which might end in unrest on the Irish scale: as ever, he specified economy and retrenchment, but now dwelt also on the need to keep up protection. He presented and endorsed agriculturists’ petitions calling for relief, 18, 20, 21 Feb., 6, 7 Mar., and objected to voting the navy estimates on inadequate information, 22 Feb.; Ibid. 19, 21-23 Feb., 6, 8 Mar. 1822. but he did not vote for the general opposition motions for more extensive tax reductions, 11, 21 Feb. He was in the minority of 39 for postponing a clause of the navy five per cents bill, 4 Mar. He supported the Irish insurrection bill and related measures because ‘their merits overbalanced their defects’, 8 Feb. He favoured investigation of Henry Hunt’s* complaints of his treatment in Ilchester gaol, on the ground that aggravated punishment was unacceptable, 20 Feb., 4 Mar. He approved Denison’s plan to reduce the cost of actions for recovery of damages inflicted by riotous mobs, 5 Mar.: this and similar measures ‘might save the people from being law-ridden as they now were - their best blood being sucked up by this vampire’. He gave notice of a motion for leave to introduce a bill of his own to facilitate the recovery of small debts from tenants, but did not pursue it. Ibid. 6 Mar. 1822. He deplored laxity in the licensing regulations for public houses, 24 Apr., and spoke and voted for Bennet’s licensing bill, 27 June. Ibid. 25 Apr., 28 June 1822. Returning to the subjects of agricultural distress, taxation and protection, he presented petitions and promised to support repeal of the leather and other taxes which had been increased ‘by a side wind’ through the change of currency, 29 Apr. Ibid. 30 Apr. 1822. He brought up more agricultural distress petitions, 2, 3 May, and on the first occasion criticized Ricardo’s proposition to allow foreign corn in bond into the market above 65s. He accused ministers of trying to shift the responsibility for dealing with distress onto the select committee, 7 May, but stood aside when Lord Londonderry intervened with a promise of ministerial action. The following day, when he presented an Oxfordshire agriculturists’ petition, Lockhart argued that Wyvill’s plan for a remission of £20,000,000 in taxation went too far, again challenged Ricardo’s identification of protection and overproduction as the causes of distress, and, apparently now pinning his own hopes on protection, applauded Londonderry’s assurance that it would be provided against sudden imports of foreign corn: ‘all that the agricultural classes wished was that they might be allowed to live, to pay their taxes, and to support government’. Ibid. 3, 4, 8 May 1822. Yet he was in the protectionist minority of 24 against the resolutions based on the committee’s report that day, and on 9 May was in that of 36 against the revised corn duties, after explaining that ‘he did not desire such an amount of taxes taken off, as would endanger the safety of the public creditor; but ... unless such a degree of protection was afforded, as would remunerate the cultivator of the soil, the ruin of the agricultural interest was inevitable’. On 10 June he opposed a clause of the corn bill dealing with the import of ground grain. Ibid. 11 June 1822. Frustrated in his hopes of adequate protection, he resumed his pursuit of tax reductions, voting for cuts in diplomatic expenditure, 15, 16 May. On 14 June he said that whatever the faults of the paper currency, the French wars could not have been successfully waged without it, and again pressed ministers to consider means of redistributing the tax burden more equitably. He was, however, in the ministerial majority against repeal of the salt duties, 28 June, and concurred in the chancellor’s argument that repeal of the Scottish cottage tax would achieve little, 9 July. Ibid. 10 July 1822. He did vote for repeal of the window tax, 2 July. He spoke and voted for inquiry into the lord advocate’s dealings with the Scottish press, 25 June, and opposed the aliens bill, 1, 19 July, when he was in the small minority for an amendment to its preamble. Ibid. 20 July 1822. He threatened to move next session for a standing order to prevent any bill concerning taxation being read a second time without being printed, 2 July. He voted for investigation of the Calcutta bankers’ grievances, 4 July. He suggested the appointment of inspectors to help improve the quality of Bank of England notes, 8 July. He supported the beer retail bill, 10, 18 July. He objected to a £400 pension for one of the late queen’s servants, 12 July 1822. Ibid. 11, 19, 20 July 1822.

Lockhart, who explained his parliamentary conduct at the annual Oxford mayor’s feast, 30 Sept. 1822, Jackson’s Oxford Jnl. 5 Oct. 1822. was barely in evidence in the House in 1823, when illness evidently put him out of action: he was granted a month’s sick leave, 14 Apr. He said that Wood’s proposal to amend the settlement regulations would ‘produce as much litigation as the existing law’, 4 June. He voted against the grant for the new London Bridge, 16 June, and deplored the repeated resurrection of the charges against chief baron O’Grady, 3 July 1823. On 11 Feb. 1824, in a speech which the backbencher Hudson Gurney considered ‘hard-headed and original, as usual’, Lockhart warned that Western’s qualification of jurors bill required careful consideration, lest it excluded the ‘sturdy’ yeoman with his ‘common stock of common sense’. Gurney diary, 11 Feb. [1824]. He advised John Williams to withdraw for the moment his motion for inquiry into chancery administration, 24 Feb., contending that it would be improper to give the lord chancellor the nomination of a commission. He voted in small minorities to reduce the grants for the barracks department, 27 Feb., and colonial services, 12 Mar., and divided for repeal of the window tax, 2 Mar. Later that month he encouraged the promotion of an Oxford petition to that effect. Jackson’s Oxford Jnl. 27 Mar. 1824. He voted against repeal of the usury laws, 27 Feb., and spoke in that sense, 8 Apr., when he praised ministers for not making it government policy and reminded Members that it would deprive the poor of their protection against the ‘extortion of pawnbrokers’. He said that Stuart Wortley’s reform of the game laws would ‘set the people by the ears’, 11 Mar., and he was a teller for the majority against it, 31 May. He tried unsuccessfully to amend the county courts bill to raise the limit on debts recoverable under it from £10 to £20, 26 Mar. He thought that legatees could be saved money if the archbishop of Canterbury appointed standing commissioners in every county, 1 Apr. He did not want the bankruptcy bill discussed in isolation from the insolvent debtors bill, 5 Apr., and on the third reading, 31 May, he secured the addition of a clause empowering the commissioners to report cases of gross fraud to the lord chancellor. The Times, 6 Apr., 1 June 1824. He approved the principle of Althorp’s bill to abolish settlement by hiring and service, which would ‘cut off one great head of litigation’, 30 Mar. He was a teller for the minority against the second reading of the hides and skins bill, 3 May, and he presented hostile petitions from Oxford and Cheltenham, 4, 12 May, as he did ones in favour of the equitable loans bank bill, 7 May, and (from Oxford inhabitants) for repeal of the assessed taxes, 13 May. Ibid. 5, 8, 13, 14 May 1824. He did not see why Quakers should be required to take oaths, 12 May. On 17 May he predicted that if the warehoused wheat bill became law, it would ‘deteriorate considerably the security of the landed proprietor and cultivator, and destroy altogether their dependence on any future legislative protection’. As chairman of the committee on the beer duties bill, he explained that they had sought to benefit the poor by recommending magistrates to license free houses to counter brewers’ local monopolies, 24 May. He opposed Hume’s motion for a return of recent commitments and convictions, 27 May. He supported the marine insurance bill, 28 May, and objected to the provision for punishment by whipping under the vagrancy bill, 3 June 1824.

Lockhart presented Oxford parish petitions for repeal of the laws concerning small debts, 14 Feb. 1825. Ibid. 15 Feb. 1825. He supported the Irish unlawful societies bill, 15, 25 Feb., having no doubt that ‘the notoriety of the system was quite sufficient to justify that House in putting down the [Catholic] Association’. He said that Catholic claims ought not to be conceded under duress, and he voted against them, 1 Mar., 21 Apr. He voted against the usury laws repeal bill, 17 Feb., and renewed his opposition to interference with the game laws, 17 Feb., 7 Mar., when he moved an unsuccessful wrecking amendment to the bill. He supported the Oxford parochial petitioning campaign for repeal of the house and window taxes, 25, 28 Feb., and voted to that effect, 3 Mar., 17 May, when ‘a very severe cold’ prevented him from speaking at length. Ibid. 26 Feb., 1 Mar.; Jackson’s Oxford Jnl. 19 Feb., 21 May 1825. He opposed as ‘injurious’ and ‘inapplicable’ Hume’s attempt to prevent Members from voting on matters in which they had a pecuniary interest, 10 Mar. He disapproved of the bill to promote the Peruvian Mining Company, 16 Mar., and of grants for various Irish charities, which only increased the number of paupers and the quantum of misery, 18 Mar. He called for reform of the settlement laws, 22 Mar. The Times, 23 Mar. 1825. On 24 Mar. he cautioned Martin against weakening the effects of his measure to prevent cruelty to animals by ‘perpetual legislation’ on the subject and applauded Peel’s criminal law reforms, though he thought that the felonies pardons bill perhaps went too far. He feared that the proposed new government buildings in Whitehall would lead to higher official salaries, greater remoteness from the public and an increase in expenditure: ‘this he should the more lament, inasmuch as ... ministers had certainly shown more feeling for the people, than any he had ever known’. When opposing abolition of the prohibitory duties on colonial corn, 2 May, he cited Tacitus as an authority on the dangers of extending too much reciprocal protection to colonies. He was credited with a vote in favour of the duke of Cumberland’s annuity bill, 6 June, but it was subsequently asserted in the local press that he had voted against the grant of £6,000 for the education of Prince George. Jackson’s Oxford Jnl. 18 June 1825. He thought that Burdett was not justified in calling for the evidence to the inquiry into chancery delays to be made public until its work had been completed, 7 June. At this time he conveyed to Peel, the home secretary and Member for Oxford University, the ‘lively apprehensions’ which many of his constituents entertained over the proposed universities police bill. Add. 40379, f. 20. He voted for the spring guns bill and supported an amendment to the church lands bill designed to protect collegiate interests, 21 June. On the Kenrick case, 28 June 1825, he wanted an end to be put to the practice of including judges in commissions of the peace.

Lockhart made light of the recent commercial crisis, 3 Feb. 1826, for he ‘considered occasional paroxysms of that nature as inseparable from the enlarged and growing bulk of the trade and resources of this great nation’. Nor was he disposed to blame the Bank, though he would not oppose the proposed measures for ‘opening the traffic to other adventurers’. He was in the minority of nine against the third reading of the promissory notes bill, 7 Mar. He said that the bill dealing with the arrangements between debtor and creditor did not go far enough, 27 Feb., and on 7 Mar. suggested that if the power to commit to the Fleet for contempt was done away with, the usefulness of chancery jurisdiction would be destroyed. He presented an Oxford petition for the abolition of slavery, 2 Mar. The Times, 3 Mar. 1826. He again praised Peel’s work at the home office, 9 Mar., but said that outside the metropolis the only significant check on crime was provided by parental influence, which had been weakened by the poor laws. He supported Russell’s bill to curb electoral bribery, 14 Mar., and spoke and voted for his resolution on the subject, 26 May, though he thought it failed to deal with the practice of paying voters after elections. He repeated his misgivings over the extension of Martin’s humane legislation, 16 Mar. He opposed Newport’s motion for regulation of Irish first fruits revenues, 21 Mar., but was in minorities of six and four for Hume’s resistance to grants for Irish charities, 23 Mar. His votes against the proposal to give the president of the board of trade a ministerial salary, 7, 10 Apr., earned him praise in an Oxford paper as ‘the most active, useful, and independent’ Member the city had ever had. Oxford University and City Herald, 15 Apr. 1826. He was shocked by Hume’s attack on lord chancellor Eldon, whom he exonerated from any personal blame for chancery delays, 18 Apr. 1826.

Lockhart stood again for Oxford at the 1826 general election, when he boasted of his support for his constituents’ campaigns for the abolition of slavery and repeal of the window tax. Another contest occurred, in which he finished a comfortable second. Ibid. 3, 10, 17 June 1826. A serious deterioration in his health undermined him in the new Parliament. He had something to say on fictitious election returns, 24 Nov. 1826. On Hervey’s motion for details of excise informations and prosecutions, 1 Dec., he reiterated his call for the court of exchequer to be thrown open. He welcomed Shadwell’s plan to amend the law of dower, 14 Feb. 1827. He did not vote in the division on Catholic relief, 6 Mar. It is not clear whether it was he or William Eliott Lockhart who voted for the Clarence annuity bill, 16 Mar. He was given a month’s sick leave, 26 Mar. 1827. He was in Paris in early October that year, reportedly in improving health. Ibid. 6 Oct. 1827. He may have voted in the Wellington ministry’s majority on chancery delays, 24 Apr. 1828. He divided against Catholic relief, 12 May. He spoke at some length in support of investigation of the complaint by Baron de Bode of inadequate compensation for loss of property in Alsace in 1793, 1 July. At the Oxford mayor’s dinner, 1 Oct. 1828, he explained why he had lately hardly attended Parliament:

He might plead as his excuse a long and serious illness; but he should add ... another cause ... that very few questions of great national importance had been there discussed, in consequence of the numerous changes which had taken place in the ministry. The House had been occupied by contentions for power and place, by matters of mere personal and party interest, with which he never chose to mix himself.

He claimed that he would have voted for repeal of the Test Acts if his support had been crucially necessary. On Catholic relief, he announced that he had now decided to remain neutral until ministers, whom he strongly criticized for their ‘disunion at this momentous crisis’, when ‘demagogues’ were threatening revolution in Ireland, had made up their collective mind one way or the other. Ibid. 4 Oct. 1828. Planta, the patronage secretary, expected him to vote ‘with government’ for emancipation, and he duly did so, 6, 30 Mar. 1829. On the 23rd he asked if the second clause of the relief bill could be adjusted to make it ‘clear and explicit’ that Catholic clergymen could not sit in the House, but Peel assured him that this contingency was covered elsewhere. The Speaker did not sanction his demand for action against an individual who had struck out names from an anti-Catholic petition, 27 Mar. On 12 Mar. he expressed worries about dispensing with jury trial for juveniles, as Davenport proposed, and approved Warburton’s anatomy bill, though he wanted the safeguard of the coroner’s warrant to be retained. He was critical of Stuart Wortley’s new game bill, 6 Apr. At the mayor’s feast, 30 Sept. 1829, when he was said to be in ‘most excellent health’, he explained and justified, to an apparently sympathetic audience, his conversion to Catholic emancipation as a means of averting disaster in Ireland. Ibid. 3 Oct. 1829.

On the presentation of an Oxford parish petition for repeal of the malt and beer duties, 17 Mar. 1830, Lockhart blamed distress largely on the alteration of the currency, which had ‘thrown down every species of property’:

We have been wandering in search of foreign markets, and by our improvident measures at home, have put it out of the power of our own people to consume our manufactures. Perhaps it is scarcely possible to go back to the currency to which the country has been accustomed, and by which all transactions were measured during the war, but that is no reason why we should obstinately persevere in our present course of conduct, without endeavouring to adopt some measures to counteract, in the language of Burke, ‘the most gigantic swindling transaction of which any state was ever guilty’.

He supported Davenport’s motion for inquiry into the state of the nation, 19 Mar., declaring that ‘the evil rankling in the very core of the heart of our social system’ could no longer be ignored. From the opposition benches, 23 Mar., he tried to prevent the reception of a Drogheda petition for repeal of the Union, but eventually yielded to the sense of the House. His only recorded vote in the 1830 session was against Jewish emancipation, 17 May 1830.

He stood again for Oxford at the general election that year, and was forced to defend himself against criticism of his absenteeism, which he said his critics had exaggerated and which he ascribed mostly to poor health: ‘surely, at the age of 70 [sic], and after 23 years arduous service in their cause, he might be allowed a little indulgence, to enable him to recruit his health sufficiently to resume his duties’. He could not get a hearing on the hustings and was beaten into third place by the man whom he had kept out in 1826. He petitioned, but, still handicapped by poor health, did not follow it up. Ibid. 10, 17, 24, 31 July, 7 Aug. 1830. At an Oxford dinner to present him with a commemorative plate, 4 Oct. 1830, he described himself as

the friend of freedom, but it is freedom of a rational kind; and I am the enemy of every doctrine and practice tending to loosen the links or subvert the order of society, whether it be the tyranny of the rich over the poor, or the attempts of the lower to degrade or destroy the upper classes. Jackson’s Oxford Jnl. 9 Oct. 1830.

In October 1831 it was revealed that he had approved the principle of the Grey ministry’s reform bill earlier in the year, having spent his life ‘in active opposition to all unconstitutional influence, as well as to base and lawless corruption’. Oxford University, City and County Herald, 1Oct. 1831. He declined an invitation to stand for Oxford, of which he was now deputy recorder, at the general election of 1832. Jackson’s Oxford Jnl. 23 June, 14 July 1832.

He died, as John Ingram Wastie, at Great Haseley in August 1835, five months after becoming recorder of Oxford. An obituary reckoned that ‘his great legal knowledge, sterling independence, and sound constitutional principles, deservedly secured to him the respect of the Senate, and the confidence of his constituents’. Gent. Mag. (1835), ii. 432. By his will, dated 7 Aug. 1835, he distributed property in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Lancashire, Suffolk and Wiltshire among numerous relatives and friends, including his nephew James Lockhart. His personalty was sworn under £20,000, and the residue calculated for duty at £1,434. PROB 11/1854/684; IR26/1406/667.