Cuthbert Bede

Edward Bradley (25 March 1827 – 12 December 1889) was an English clergyman and novelist. He was born in Kidderminster in Worcestershire, and educated at Durham University from which he took his pen name Cuthbert Bede. His most popular book was The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, on the experiences of an Oxford undergraduate. There was a sequel, Little Mr Bouncer and his friend Verdant Green. Tales of College Life (often bound with it), introduces the character of Mr Affable Canary. The celebrated illustrations to the Verdant Green books were the work of the author.

Life

He was the second son of Thomas Bradley, surgeon of Kidderminster, who came of a somewhat ancient Worcestershire and clerical family. A brother, Thomas Waldron Bradley, was author of two novels, Grantley Grange (1874) and Nelly Hamilton (1875), while an uncle, William Bradley of Leamington, wrote Sketches of the Poor by a retired Guardian.

After education at the Kidderminster Grammar School, Bradley went up in 1845 to University College, Durham, where he was Thorp Scholar and Foundation Scholar. He graduated B.A. in 1848, and took his licentiateship of theology in 1849. Not being of age to take orders, he appears to have stayed a year at Oxford, pursuing various studies, though he never matriculated, and while there he formed a lifelong friendship with John George Wood.

For a year or so he worked in the clergy schools at Kidderminster. In 1850, he was ordained by the Bishop of Ely, Thomas Turton, and appointed to the curacy of Glatton-with-Holme in Huntingdonshire. He remained there over four years, during which he described for the Illustrated London News the extensive work of draining Whittlesey Mere, then being carried out by William Wells of Holmewood.