He retained his connection with the provinces by acting as London correspondent of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, a conservative journal, and in 1863 he became joint proprietor of the paper with William Christopher Leng.

[1] In 1866 Clifford went to Jamaica to report for The Times the royal commission of inquiry into the conduct of Governor Edward John Eyre.

He helped in 1868 to found the Press Association, an institution formed to supply newspaper proprietors of London and the provinces with home and foreign news, and he acted as chairman of the committee of management during two periods of five years each, finally retiring in 1880.

[1] In early life Clifford co-operated with Edward Bulwer, Charles Dickens, and other men of letters and artists in forming the Guild of Literature and Art, which was incorporated by private act of parliament (17 & 18 Vict.

[1] In 1870 Clifford, with his lifelong friend, Pembroke S. Stephens, K.C., published The Practice of the Court of Referees on Private Bills in Parliament.

This textbook on private bill practice first embodied alterations in the procedure of the Court of Referees made by act of parliament (30 & 31 Vict.

His surviving family of four sons and two daughters presented in his memory a silver-gilt claret jug to the Middle Temple.

[2] His fourth son, Colonel Sir Charles Clifford, KBE, CMG, LLD, JP (1860-1936).