Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/173

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Bradford
161
Bradford

lated to the see of Rochester, and was also appointed to the deanery of Westminster, which he held in commendam with the bishopric of Rochester. In 1724 Bradford resigned the mastership of Corpus Christi, and in 1725 became the first dean of the revived order of the Bath. He died on 17 May 1731, at the deanery of Westminster, and was buried in the abbey.

Bradford's wife, who survived him, was a daughter of Captain Ellis of Medbourne in Leicestershire, and bore him one son and two daughters. One of the latter was married to Dr. Reuben Clarke, archdeacon of Essex, and the other to Dr. John Denne, archdeacon of Rochester. His son, the Rev. William Bradford, died on 15 July 1728, aged thirty-two, when he was archdeacon of Rochester and vicar of Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Bradford published more than a score of separate sermons. One of these—a 'Discourse concerning Baptismal and Spiritual Regeneration,' 2nd ed., 8vo, London, 1709—attained a singular popularity. A ninth edition was published in 1819 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

[Graduati Cantab. 1787; Gent. Mag. May 1731; Chronological Diary, 1731; Birch's Life of Archbishop Tillotson, 1752; History and Antiquities of Rochester, &c., 1817; R. Masters's Hist. Corpus Christi Coll. (Lamb), 1831; Le Neve's Fasti, 1854.]

A. H. G.


BRADFORD, Sir THOMAS (1777–1853), general, was the eldest son of Thomas Bradford of Woodlands, near Doncaster, and Ashdown Park in Sussex, and was born on 1 Dec. 1777. He entered the army as ensign in the 4th regiment on 20 Oct. 1793. He was promoted major into the Nottinghamshire Fencibles, then stationed in Ireland, in 1795. He gave proof of military ability during the Irish rebellion, and in 1801 was promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel, and appointed assistant adjutant-general in Scotland. He was again brought on to the strength of the army as major in 1805, and served with Auchmuty as deputy adjutant-general in 1806 in the expedition to South America. In June 1808 he accompanied the force under Sir Arthur Wellesley to Portugal, and was present at the battles of Vimeiro and Corunna. On his return to England he became assistant adjutant-general at Canterbury, and lieutenant-colonel in succession of the 34th and 82nd regiments in 1809. In 1810 he was promoted colonel, and took the command of a brigade in the Portuguese army. He proved himself one of the most successful Portuguese brigadiers, and at the attack on the Arapiles in the battle of Salamanca Bradford's brigade showed itself worthy of a place beside the British army. In 1813 he was promoted major-general, and made a mariscal de campo in the Portuguese service, receiving the command of a Portuguese division. He commanded this division at Vittoria, at the siege of San Sebastian, and in the battle of the Nive. At the battle before Bayonne he was so severely wounded that he had to return to England.

In 1814 he was placed on the staff of the northern district, and made K.C.B. and K.T.S.; but he missed the battle of Waterloo, at which his younger brother, Lieutenant-colonel Sir Henry Holles Bradford, K.C.B., who had also been a staff officer in the Peninsula, was killed. He commanded the seventh division of the army of occupation in France from 1815 to 1817, and the troops in Scotland from 1819 till he was promoted lieutenant-general in May 1825, and was then appointed commander-in-chief of the troops in the Bombay presidency. He held this command for four years. He was colonel 94th regiment 1823–9, and on his return to England in 1829 became colonel 30th regiment (till 1846). In 1831 he was made G.C.H., in 1838 G.C.B., in 1841 he was promoted general, and in 1846 exchanged the colonelcy of the 38th for that of the 4th regiment. He died in London on 28 Nov. 1853, aged 75.

[Royal Military Calendar; obituary notices in the Times, Gent. Mag., and Colburn's United Service Magazine.]

H. M. S.

BRADFORD, WILLIAM (1590–1657), second governor of Plymouth, New England, and one of the founders of the colony, was born in a small village on the southern border of Yorkshire. The name of the village is in Mather's 'Magnalia,' the chief authority on his early life, wrongly printed Ansterfield, and was first identified as Austerfield by Joseph Hunter (Collections concerning the Early History of the Founders of New England). William was the eldest son and third child of William Bradford and Alice, daughter of John Hanson, and according to the entry still to be found in the parish register was baptised 19 March 1589-90. The family held the rank of yeomen, and in 1575 his two grandfathers, William Bradford and John Hanson, were the only persons of property in the township. On the death of his father, on 15 July 1591, he was left, according to Mather, with 'a comfortable inheritance,' and 'was cast on the education, first of his grandparents and then of his uncles, who devoted him, like his ancestors, unto the affairs of husbandry.' He is said to have had serious impressions of religion at the age of twelve