 |
Edward John Bedford (c.1865-1953)
Edward John Bedford (c.1865-1953) Edward Bedford, was born in Lewes, East Sussex during the 1860s. A pupil at the Lewes School of Art, he later became an art teacher at Brighton School of Art in 1883. He was fascinated by the new subject of photography and used photographs to record the town of Lewes and its buildings, railways and natural history. In 1892, he moved to Eastbourne where he became Headmaster of Eastbourne Municiple School of Art and Design. A member of the Sussex Archaeological Society from 1890 until his death, he photographically recorded the changes he saw in Lewes. In 1888, the Lewes Photographic Society was founded, with Bedford as its Honorary Secretary. He became recognized for his natural history photography, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. An expert in the photography of birds and orchids, he also wrote many journal articles. The book Nature photography for beginners (1909) used 100 of Bedford's photographs. By 1915, he had withdrawn from his professional teaching career and set up his own studio in the former premises of the artist John Haynes-Williams (1836-1908), from where he gave photographic courses. By the early 1920s, Bedford began teaching again as Principle at Lewes School of Art and wrote regular articles on orchids for the Sussex County Magazine. During this period, he was contracted by the Natural History Museum to produce the artwork for a series of postcards British trees and British orchids. These were issued between 1926 and 1931, together with illustrations by another artist, Beatrice Corfe (1866-1947). Following the closure of the School of Art in 1932,
Bedford became the curator of the newly established
Lewes Borough Museum which closed a few years later.
Orchids are one of the largest family of flowering
plants (Orchidaceae). The lady’s slipper orchid
(Cypripedium calceolus) is part of this
family and is considered one of Britain’s rarest
orchids. Since 1992, the lady’s slipper orchid has
been the subject of an English
Nature Recovery programme. Its main threats
are given as habitat destruction from grazing and
uprooting by gardeners and botanical collectors.
The Edward Bedford Drawings Collection The collection of drawings of British Mammals (c.1905-1910) by Edward Adrian Wilson (1872-1912), was commissioned for A History of British Mammals (1910-1921) by Gerald Edwin Hamilton Barrett-Hamilton (1871-1914) and was continued after the author's death by Martin Alister Campbell Hinton (1883-1961). The Museum purchased this drawings collection in 1987. The collection consists of 50 art originals, of
which 27 were published in A History of British
Mammals (1910-1921).
Exhibition and publication details This drawing has not been on public display.
References and further reading Minnis, John (1989) E.J. Bedford of Lewes :
photographer of the London Brighton & South
Coast Railway. Didcot : Wild Swan. 102pp. |
