Bradley,_George_Granville

Bradley, George Granville (1821-1903), English divine and scholar, was born on the 11th of December 1821, his father, Charles Bradley, being at that time vicar of Glasbury, Brecon. He was educated at Rugby under Thomas Arnold, and at University College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in 1844. He was an assistant master at Rugby from 1846 to 1858, when he succeeded G.E.L. Cotton as headmaster at Marlborough. In 1870 he was elected master of his old college at Oxford, and in August 1881 he was made dean of Westminster in succession to A.P. Stanley, whose pupil and intimate friend he had been, and whose biographer he became. Besides his Recollections of A.P. Stanley (1883) and Life of Dean Stanley (1892), he published Aids to writing Latin Prose Composition and Lectures on Job (1884) and Ecclesiastes (1885). He took part in the coronation of Edward VII., resigned the deanery in 1902, and died on the 13th of March 1903.

Dean Bradley’s family produced various other members distinguished in literature. His half-brother, Andrew Cecil Bradley (b. 1851), fellow of Balliol, Oxford, became professor of modern literature and history (1881) at University College, Liverpool, and in 1889 regius professor of English language and literature at Glasgow University; and he was professor of poetry at Oxford (1901-1906). Of Dean Bradley’s own children the most distinguished in literature were his son, Arthur Granville Bradley (b. 1850), author of various historical and topographical works; and especially his daughter, Mrs Margaret Louisa Woods (b. 1856), wife of the Rev. Henry George Woods, president of Trinity, Oxford (1887-1897), and master of the Temple (1904), London. Mrs Woods became well known for her accomplished verse (Lyrics and Ballads, 1889), largely influenced by Robert Bridges, and for her novels, of which her Village Tragedy (1887) was the earliest and strongest.

* * *