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BEDE, CUTHBERT (1827–1889)
English writer and illustrator who satirized
photography
Cuthbert Bede was the pseudonym of Edward Bradley,
an English clergyman who, as a writer and illustrator,
explored the comic possibilities of photography. It
is known that in the 1850s he also took photographs
although the extent of this activity is uncertain and no
surviving photographs can be reliably authenticated as
his. Unless more evidence comes to light, Bede’s impor-
tance to the history of photography rests principally on
his book Photographic Pleasures: Popularly Portrayed
with Pen and Pencil published in January 1855 and
his allusions to photography in The Adventures of Mr
Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman which dates from
1853, and which subsequently spawned two sequels.
Edward Bradley was born in Kidderminster in the
County of Worcestershire, England, on 25th March
- The son of a surgeon, he was educated at Kid-
derminster Grammar School and at University College,
Durham, Northumberland. He obtained his Licentiate
in Theology and then went on to take holy orders. He
invented his pseudonym by combining Saint Cuthbert
and the Venerable Bede whilst still an undergraduate
student. In common with many contemporary and near
contemporary literary satirists such as Thomas Love
Peacock, the youthful Bede began with poetry and prose
writing for the periodical press, including Bentley’s
Miscellany and Punch, before turning to book publica-
tions. ‘The Wanton Sunbeam’ of 1847 is an example
which indicates Bede’s incipient interest in photography.
It took Bede some time to realise that his talent lay in
combining his comic prose with his own humorous
illustrations. However before this point was reached,
Bede had begun work on one of the fi rst commercially
produced Christmas cards, and on an early example
of a double acrostic crossword, the later subsequently
appearing in The Illustrated London News in 1856. He
was later to return to verse again in, for example, Funny
Figures of 1858, a book for children.
In terms of the development of his ideas, it is likely
that Bede would have known William Makepeace Thac-
keray’s character Michael Angelo Titmarsh, a parody of
‘the artist connoisseur’ which fi rst appeared in Fraser’s
Magazine in 1838, which itself was modelled on Thomas
Rowlandson’s Doctor Syntax, an open parody of the
champion of the picturesque, William Gilpin. Titmarsh
is similar in many respects to the caricatured ‘photog-
rapher’ that Bede went on to create in Photographic
Pleasures. Bede met George Cruickshank, the pre-emi-
nent graphic satirist of the period in 1853 and the latter
recommended that Bede produce something similar to
his own Adventures of Mr Lambkin: or the Batchelor’s
Own Book. It is signifi cant that following the publication
of Photographic Pleasures, Bede was to be compared
to Cruickshank as well as to Richard Doyle and John
Leech. Bede also collaborated with Albert Smith of
Christopher Tadpole fame and with Alfred Crowquill
(Alfred Henry Forrester) who provided the illustrations
to Bede’s 1864 book Fairy Fables.
Bede soon found himself with two quite different
professional lives, that of his religious calling and that of
his work as an increasingly successful satirist. His fi rst
curacy was in Glatton-with-Holme in Huntingdonshire
which commenced on 17th^ November 1850. A further
curacy followed at Leigh, Worcestershire and he mar-
ried Harriet Hancocks from nearby Wolverley in 1858.
By this time he was vicar at Bobbington, Staffordshire
and went on to become rector at Denton-with-Caldecote
in Huntingdonshire (now part of Cambridgeshire) and
rector of St Nicholas in Stretton in Rutland. After his
death on 12th December 1889, he was buried in Stretton
churchyard. He had two sons who grew to maturity, one
of whom, Charles Bradley, wrote and illustrated mostly
on sporting subjects. During his time at Stretton, Bede
became heavily involved with antiquarianism and with
congregational obligations including fundraising for
church restoration and various educational projects. His
gained his last living at Lenton in Lincolnshire in 1883.
The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green, An Oxford
Freshman, a ‘town and gown’ story which appears
to have been drawn from Bede’s own experience at
Durham and possibly from time residing in Oxford,
was originally intended for serial publication in Punch.
Nothing came of this and Bede suffered further disap-
pointment when it was fi rst accepted by the Illustrated
London News and then dropped. By 1853 the story was
completed and had been taken up by Nathaniel Cooke
who marketed it as a railway novel. It employs photog-
raphy in the narration, principally in the form of Miss
Bouncer, a typical Bede play on words as she was much
inclined to embonpoint. Miss Bouncer, an exponent of
the “fascinating art of photography” is depicted in one
of Bede’s illustrations calotyping Mr Verdant Green.
Indifferent to Miss Bouncer, he preferred Miss Hon-
eywood, in whose eyes he saw “little daguerreotypes
of himself.”
The fi rst and second editions of this volume, though
not subsequent editions, appeared with a portrait
frontispiece of its author adapted from a photograph