Constituency : Lambeth 1857-62
William was the illegitimate son of a scarp metal dealer and property developer though his parents later married. He trained as a solicitor and also worked in his father's business. He wished to join fashionable society and spent in excess of his allowance. To ease his debts he fraudulently mortgaged one of his father's properties in 1850. This pattern continued although his parents were usually the victims. When his father died in 1856 William managed to get a forged will accepted as the genuine one had favoured his younger brother who had been born in wedlock. In 1855 he was elected to the Lambeth Vestry a sort of development corporation. He was elected in 1857 promising support for the ballot, franchise extension, abolition of church rates and retrenchment. He was accused of bribery and corruption during the campaign but the investigation was dropped after its instigators were found to be involved in shady business deals with William. He did not speak much in the House but in 1858 spoke out against sewage schemes that might impact his property.
William expressed his opposition to the 1860 Reform Bill as too timid a measure - "The mountain has been in labour anfd has brought forth a mouse".
By 1862 William was unable to service the mortgages he had taken out and fled to Spain. On his return he was arrested for fraud and forgery and had to resign his seat.
William agreed to aid his brother in recovering some of the misappropriated fortune admitting his guilt. He was sentenced to penal servitude for life. He was at Portland Prison in 1870 working in the infirmary when a Fenian prisoner called Thompson died there and he gave fawning evidence at the inquest about his benevolent treatment. A fellow convict alleged that he received preferential treatment while at the prison. He spent much of his sentence doing hard labour at Chatham Dockyard before his release on parole in 1876. He spent his last years working for the church and gardening.
He died in a nursing home of pneumonia in 1909 aged 77.
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