Wilmot Henry Bradford ⁵⁴

  General Notes:

From The Times, March 27, 1914

A correspondent writes with reference to General Wilmot Henry
Bradford, who died recently at his residence, Ridgemount, Bournemouth,
in the 100th year of his age:-
"He was the only son of the late Rev. William Bradford, rector of
Storrington, in Sussex. His father, like many other of the clergy at
that time, volunteered for service as a chaplain to the Forces, and in
that capacity took part in Sir John Moore's retreat to Corunna. His
"Sketches of the Country, Character, and Costume in Spain and
Portugal", a fine folio published by Ackerman, was the outcome of his
service in the Peninsula. He afterwards resided for some years at
Vienna, where he held the post of chaplain to the British Embassy.
Both the General's parents possessed literary and historical tastes.
His father published, in addition to the above-mentioned work, the
"Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V.", and his mother was the
author of the well-known "Memoirs of Princess Dashkaw". The elder of
his two uncles, Sir Thomas Bradford, was in command of Bradford's
Brigade in the Peninsula War, and was afterwards successively
Commander of the Forces in Scotland and Commander of the Army in the
Bombay Presidency. His other uncle, Sir Henry Holles Bradford, of the
Grenadier Guards, was on Wellington's staff at Waterloo, and died of
wounds received in that battle.
"During his father's residence at Vienna he became intimate with many
of the leading families in Austria. Even to the last he was in
correspondence with, and received visits from, the children and
grandchildren of his playmates in the Vienna of the twenties. Amongst
those with whom he learnt riding in the Imperial riding school was the
Duke of Richstadt, the son of the great Napoleon and Marie Louise. He
must certainly have been for many years past the only living person
who could claim a first-hand knowledge of both l'Aiglon and of Prince
Metternich. General Bradford went to Eton the year after Mr. Gladstone
left, and he entered the Army as far back as 1833. As a subaltern in
the Rifle Brigade he had gone over more than once from Dover to Walmer
Castle to dine with the Duke of Wellington, and he used to recall an
occasion on which he had been driven over from Windsor to dine with
the Duchess of Kent at Claremont and had sat at table next the
Princess Victoria, who was to ascend to the Throne in a year or two's
time. Much of his military service was in Canada, and he could
remember the days in which quintals of dried cod formed the currency
of Cape Breton. He commanded his battalion of the Rifle Brigade in
the Crimean War, and subsequently commanded the Canadian Rifles, a
regiment raised just after the Crimean War."

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Census UK 1911: 1911, 5 Wimborne Road, Bournemouth, Hampshire. ¹⁰

2. Resided: 14 March 1914, Ridgemount, Wimborne Road, Bournemouth, Dorset. ¹³

3. He had an estate probated on 9 April 1914 in London. ¹³