He became chairman of the Fitzroy Ironworks Co. in 1864 and though he reorganised the company financially, it failed for other reasons: this was Vickery's only business setback.

Next year his Sydney factory, associated with J. E. Begg's Glenmore tannery, employed twenty-five persons on the premises and about seventy-five outworkers.

Vickery's political career began in 1863, when he was elected to councillor of the Waverely municipality to represent the ward of Bondi.

He bought the Lyceum Theatre in Pitt Street in 1905, spent £27,000 on alterations and gave it to the Church: it was opened in September 1908 as 'The Vickery Mission Settlement'.

Self made and self-contained, Vickery cared little about society or culture: his business, his family, his Church and his philanthropic work were his absorbing interests.

He survived the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake in California, but died after an operation at Leeds, England, on 20 August 1906.