Robert Bradford (Northern Ireland politician)

Infobox Politician | name=Robert Bradford, MP


width=120px
term_start=1974
term_end=1981
predecessor=Rafton Pounder
successor=Martin Smyth
birth_date=birth date|1941|6|8|df=y
birth_place=Limavady, Northern Ireland
death_date = death date and age|1981|11|14|1941|6|8|df=y
death_place = Belfast
party = Ulster Unionist Party
spouse =
children =
residence =
occupation =
religion = Protestant
constituency=South Belfast
party=Ulster Unionist Party
office=MP
spouse=
website=

The Reverend Robert Bradford MP (8 June 1941 - 14 November 1981) was an Ulster Unionist Member of Parliament for the Belfast South constituency in Northern Ireland.

Footballer

Bradford was born on 8 June 1941 to a Belfast family, although his birth took place in Limavady as his family had been evacuated. Bradford's father left the family not long after his birth and his mother died so he was raised by foster parents. A talented footballer, Bradford signed for Glenavon F.C. as a teenager and his displays soon attracted the attentions of top English side Sheffield Wednesday F.C, who invited him to a trial. However, Bradford was not signed by the club and returned to Northern Ireland to resume his career with the then Belfast-based club Distillery.

Religion

Bradford gave up football in 1964, after deciding to train to become a Methodist minister. After spending the rest of the 1960s attached to congregations in East Belfast and Fivemiletown, Bradford was fully ordained in 1970 and given his own parish in the Suffolk area of South-west Belfast. Bradford would later be removed from post in the late 1970s and would spend the final years of his life without a church. During these years he came to spend time in the 'Bible belt' of the United States and became associated with Evangelicalism. Nevertheless Bradford claimed to always remain at heart a Methodist and also rejected suggestions that he was to join Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church (which he never did).

Political career

Bradford first became involved with unionism in 1971 when he joined the Orange Order. From here he became more involved in the political side of the movement and stood as a candidate for the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party in the Northern Ireland Assembly election, 1973 in South Antrim, although he was not elected.

Rev Bradford was first elected as Member of Parliament for South Belfast in the February 1974 British general election, this time under the banner of the United Ulster Unionist Council (an alliance between the Vanguard, the Democratic Unionist Party and the anti-Brian Faulkner Ulster Unionists under Harry West), defeating the sitting MP Rafton Pounder, a pro-Faulkner Unionist. Bradford greatly increased his majority in the October election, after Pounder dropped out, and largely maintained this increased majority in 1979. Between 1974 and 1978 he sat for the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party until in February 1978 he joined the Ulster Unionist Party (then commonly called the Official Unionist Party), along with Vanguard leader William Craig and most of the membership. He was re-elected in 1979 for the UUP.

Death

Bradford was killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army on 14 November 1981 in a community centre in Finaghy, Belfast, while hosting a political surgery. Kenneth Campbell, the 29 year old Protestant caretaker in the centre, was also shot dead in the attack.

The Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald made an expression of sympathy in the Dáil Éireann saying: [ [http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0330/D.0330.198111170057.html Dáil Éireann Parliamentary Debates - Volume 330] - November 17, 1981] Cquote|I would like to refer to the brutal murder, by the Provisional IRA, of the Reverend Robert Bradford, MP in Belfast on Saturday last. His death and that of Mr. Ken Campbell, caretaker at the Finaghy Community Centre, are part of a calculated series of atrocities committed in recent days. I know that all the people we represent share the sense of sorrow, anger and outrage widely felt in Northern Ireland at present.

The killing of an elected representative of the people calls for particular condemnation in the strongest possible terms and serves to remind us of the real objectives of the organisation responsible. The IRA has once again shown its utter contempt for human life and for the democratic process which it has recently sought to distort for its own ends. Its true attitude to democracy and freedom was summed up in a recent statement of an IRA spokesman who, when asked by an interviewer for a foreign newspaper about the wishes of the people in this part of the country concerning an aspect of reunification, replied, “We call the shots. We don't really give a damn what they want”.

His seat was won by Rev. Martin Smyth, also of the Ulster Unionists, in a by-election in 1982.

A book about his life entitled "A Sword Bathed in Heaven", was written about him by his widow Norah in 1984, dealing largely with his path to Methodism, although also examining his political career.

References

Bibliography

* Norah Bradford, "A Sword Bathed in Heaven", 1984

External links

* [http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0096/S.0096.198111180003.html Seanad Éireann (Senate of the Republic of Ireland) passes motion of sympathy on assassination of Rev Robert Bradford MP.]
* [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1981.html NI Conflict Archive on the Internet]