LIEUTENANT ALFRED ROYAL BRADFORD
CAMBRIDGESHIRE REGIMENT
14TH OCTOBER 1916 AGE 22
BURIED: LONSDALE CEMETERY, AUTHUILLE, FRANCE
On 14 October 1916 the 1st Battalion the Cambridgeshire Regiment, together with the 4/5th Black Watch, succeeded in not only capturing but also in holding the Schwaben Redoubt, an event described by General Haig as "one of the finest feats of arms in the history of the British Army". The redoubt, an "all-important hill-top, which dominated the field of battle for many miles in every direction" was constructed of trenches, dug outs and machine gun emplacements. Six attempts had been made to capture it since 1 July, and many hundreds of men had been killed in the attempts.
The regiment's success was a matter of great pride in Cambridgeshire, which explains why Marcus Bradford, manager and later owner of the University Arms Hotel, mentioned it on his son's headstone inscription. We don't know how Bradford was killed but Lt Colonel Clayton, in the 'The Cambridgeshires 1914-1919', writes that at the end of the day, after the Cambridgeshires had achieved their stunning victory:
"I went out into the still, starlit night. By the entrance to my dug-out lay the body of my brave intelligence officer, Bradford. Fearless in life, he had done his work nobly. I am afraid I sobbed like a child; but I was not ashamed of this breakdown."
A month earlier Bradford, then the battalion machine-gun officer, had risked his life in trying to rescue three officers, Shaw, Adam and Butlin, all wounded in a failed raid. "All night long heroic effort were made to rescue the three officers, especially by Lieut. Bradford, Lewis gun officer, who seems to have kept numbers of the enemy at bay by his individual exertions". [Arthur Innes Adams p. 244] The attempt ultimately failed and had to be abandoned but that's how Bradford earned the adjective 'brave'.
The Latin quotation, forming the second part of the inscription, casts a little more light on Bradford's character: 'Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re', gentle in manner, resolute in deed. The quotation comes from 'Industria ad Curandos Animae Morbos' written by the Jesuit priest Claudio Acquviva (1543-1615).