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Kenneth Western: Music Hall Star Extraordinaire
Never heard of him? Well, he and his cousin George made up the “Western Brothers,” a clever and slightly subversive act that was popular for decades and had as one of its fans, no less...
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John Paviour of Bedford. Tailor, Congregationalist, Preacher, Public Servant and keen Anti-Vaccinator
John had a difficult start in life but managed to overcome it to become a respected citizen and public servant of Bedford. He was born on 24 November 1839 and baptized on 29 December at...
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FREDERICK HAMER LEADING LIGHT OF AN OLD ENGLISH TRADITION
When we think about old English folk traditions what comes to mind first of all are things like dancing round the maypole or wassailing, and then there are the heroes such as King Arthur, Robin...
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The Reverend Edward Porter and Martha Kilpin Porter Missionaries in India 1835-1868
The Rev. Edward Porter was born on the 19th July 1810 at Sherborne, Dorset, and was one of the six sons of Benjamin Coombs Porter, a grocer (1782-1816) and Rebecca, née Long (1772-1821). By the...
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The Sharpins: ‘Surgeons and Physicians of Bedford’.
Six members of the Sharpin family are buried in Foster Hill Road (FHR) Cemetery, and many other members of the family had close links with Bedford. Henry Wilson Sharpin and his wife, Edith Esther, their...
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The Tacchi Family
Antonio Tacchi was born in 1784 at Bellagio on Lake Como, Lombardy in northern Italy. He was probably one of the many Italians who migrated to England in the early 1800s. Antonio settled in Bedford...
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Buried a Thousand Miles from Home – Bogdan Janicijevic
Do you, like me, sometimes think how sad it is when you look carefully at the words on an old headstone and think to yourself that there’s something important that’s missing? Perhaps you look at...
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The Musical Rose family
Robert Rose was born on 17 October 1814 in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, the son of Robert and Priscilla Rose. He was baptised on 17 February 1815 at the ‘Independent’ church there, a Non-Conformist denomination which...
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JOE CLOUGH – BEDFORD’S FIRST BLACK BUS AND TAXI-DRIVER
Joe Clough was an early immigrant from Jamaica, who became London's first black motorbus driver, an ambulance driver in the First World War, a driver for the National Omnibus Company in Bedford and latterly a...
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The Day Family
The Days were a family who built up their business mainly in the building trade in Bedford but also in ironmongery, at a time when the town of Bedford was rapidly expanding. Through marriage they...