Harold Bradfield

Anglican bishop who served as Bishop of Bath and Wells^[3] from 1946^[4]

City of London Yeomanry and the Army Cyclist Corps. He served in France in 1918-19 and, after the Great War ended, he was awarded the Victory and British War Medals.^[6] In 1922, he completed a Bachelor of Divinity degree at King's College, London, and was ordained and served in Lancashire as a curate and Vicar of St Mark's, Heyside. In 1934, he was appointed Secretary of the Canterbury Diocesan Board of Finance and in 1942, Archdeacon of Croydon.^[7] Bradfield had been considered for bishoprics including Croydon in 1942,^[8] but concerns were expressed about his health because of over-exertion. Nevertheless, his reputation as 'one of the ablest and most clearheaded men in administration and finance' was emphasised by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, who was the key figure in the appointment process, and Bradfield was offered the bishopric of Bath and Wells.^[9] He remained in post until his death in 1960, the last in a series of bouts of ill-health. He gained national fame in 1953 when he was one of the Queen's supporters at her coronation. The occasion was one of the first major outside broadcasts, and Bradfield's distinctive spectacles and dark hair can be seen to the Queen's left, with Michael Ramsey of Durham, a future Archbishop of Canterbury