William Pickett (alderman)

Pickett was in business as a goldsmith on Ludgate Hill from 1758, initially a partner in Thead & Pickett. From 1768 to 1777 he traded under his own name. From 1777 Philip Rundell was a partner with him in Pickett & Rundell.[2] In December 1781 his daughter died of burns after her clothes caught fire the previous evening. Pickett had been in the same room, but was unable to react quickly enough.[3]

In 1786 Rundell bought out Pickett, and within about a year the firm became Rundell and Bridge, the dominant London goldsmiths for half a century.[4]

Pickett was elected alderman of Cornhill Ward in 1783.[5] In London's Court of Alderman he belonged to the Whig group, opposed to the government of William Pitt the younger in the 1790s.[6] In 1787, at the request of local traders, he campaigned for the removal of Temple Bar, but without success.[7] While this scheme for street widening was thrown out, Pickett did succeed with another, near the Strand in the area of St Clement Danes.[8] The resulting new Pickett Street was only called for that name for a short while, the traditional name Strand prevailing.[9] The new development was demolished in 1870, to make way for the Royal Courts of Justice.[10]

A reforming Lord Mayor for 1789, Pickett then stood as a parliamentary candidate, for the City of London, in 1790. Without a political organisation he came bottom of the poll. He stood again in 1796, as an opponent of the sedition bills, with little more success.[11]

Pickett was buried in the family vault in Stoke Newington on 24 December 1796.[12]

He married Elizabeth Pratten.[13][14] Other sources say he married the daughter of his partner Thead.