The high point of Bamford's involvement and influence in radical politics was between 1816 and 1821. The remainder of his long life — after his quarrels with fellow radicals — is perhaps anticlimatic. About 1826 he became correspondent of a London morning newspaper, and having ceased to be a weaver by employment, he incurred some dislike or distrust on the part of his old fellow-workmen. His anti-Chartist attitudes and boundless egotism counted against him with many of his fellows. Yet he always pleaded their cause as opportunity served, even when, as a special constable during the Chartist agitation, he incurred the downright enmity of his own class.

Late in life he became increasingly cantankerous and jealous of his prestige as "the oldest living reformer" and as late as 1861 he believed government spies were keeping him under surveillance for his dangerous politics. By this time he had become one of "the prize platform bores of Lancashire political life", noting bitterly in his diary that someone else had been invited to give a lecture on parliamentary reform in Oldham Town Hall: I was certainly much hurt to see that a young man, a young Parliamentary reformer, should be preferred to give a lecture on that subject whilst an old veteran like myself, who must have large knowledge of the subject from experience, and was on the verge of distress from want of encouragement in the way of lecturing, should be passed by. (May 13th 1861) From http://gerald-massey.org.uk/bamford/

Thus he sung till he deed, an' his soul-stirrin' strains,
    Never failed to encourage an' bless;
For he loved to rejoice wi' thoose hearts 'at rejoiced,
    An' sorrow wi' thoose i' distress.
God bless him, an' iv ther's a spot up aboon,
    Wheer dwell th' noble-minded an' pure,
Wheer th' songsters are gathered to strike up a tune,
    Th' owd brid's perched amongst 'em we're sure!

By Samuel Laycock