Staniforth Ricketson

Staniforth Ricketson (1 August 1891 – 6 December 1967) was an Australian stockbroker, financier, and political figure.

Early life Ricketson was born in Malvern, Victoria, to Sophia Henrietta (née Sheppard) and Henry Joseph Ricketson. He was named after his paternal grandmother Georgina Staniforth. He had ties to stockbroker Jonathan Binns Were on both sides of his family – Were was his mother's maternal grandfather and his father's step-grandfather.

Education Ricketson attended Prahran North State School, where he was dux in 1905. He subsequently attended Wesley College for two years on scholarships, before leaving school in 1907. He worked as a jackaroo for a period and then became a correspondence clerk with the Australian Mercantile Land & Finance Company. In 1909, Ricketson moved to King Island with his brother Lancelot. They ran the Ricketson Bros. general store and Staniforth edited The King Islander, a local newspaper. The following year he became a reporter for the North Western Advocate and Emu Bay Times.

Politics Ricketson came to prominence politically during the Great Depression as an opponent of default on national debt and supporter of debt restructuring (known as "loan conversion" at the time). In late 1930, he and his friend Robert Menzies assisted the loan conversion campaign that acting treasurer Joseph Lyons had initiated to allow Australia to meet its obligations to international financiers. At the time, Lyons was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Ricketson had "grown increasingly impatient with the dysfunction of Labor's caucus through 1930". He became the leader of the so-called "Group of Six" (or simply "The Group") which helped convince Lyons to leave the ALP and eventually become the figurehead of the anti-Labor United Australia Party (UAP). Ricketson had first met Lyons while in Tasmania in 1911. The Group met with Lyons regularly in early 1931 and became "the spine that held the diverse groups together to create the UAP". In May 1931, Ricketson became the temporary secretary of the central council of the UAP's Victorian section.

Ricketson died at his home in Kew on 6 December 1967, aged 76. His estate was valued for probate at $1,994,720 .