Robert Bradford | |
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| Member of Parliament forBelfast South | |
| In office 28 February 1974 – 14 November 1981 | |
| Preceded by | Rafton Pounder |
| Succeeded by | Martin Smyth |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert Jonathan Bradford (1941-06-08)8 June 1941 Limavady, Northern Ireland |
| Died | 14 November 1981(1981-11-14) (aged 40) Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Manner of death | Assassination (gunshot wounds) |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party Ulster Unionist Party |
| Spouse | Norah Bradford |
| Children | Claire Bradford |
| Profession | Clergyman |
Robert Jonathan Bradford (8 June 1941 – 14 November 1981) was aMethodist Minister and aVanguard Unionist andUlster UnionistMember of Parliament for theBelfast Southconstituency in Northern Ireland until his murder by theProvisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 14 November 1981.
Robert Jonathan Bradford was born on 8 June 1941 to aBelfast family who were resident inLimavady,County Londonderry, due to thewartime evacuation. Bradford's father left the family not long after his birth and his mother died so he was raised byfoster parents. A talentedfootballer, Bradford signed forGlenavon F.C. as a teenager and his displays soon attracted the attentions of the English sideSheffield 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 clubDistillery.
Bradford gave up football in 1964, after deciding to train to become aMethodist minister. After spending the rest of the 1960s attached to congregations inEast Belfast andFivemiletown, Bradford was fully ordained in 1970 and given his own parish in the Suffolk area of southwestBelfast. Bradford later resigned from the Methodist ministry in the late 1970s after feeling that he and his fellow ministers were on divergent paths both politically and ecumenically.[why?][1] In October 1973 Bradford paid for a frontpage advertisement in theNews Letter condemning dialogue with "Roman apostates". Several fellow Methodist ministers criticised Bradford, pointing out that the decision to engage in dialogue with the Catholic Church had been taken at the Methodist Conference in June following an open debate.[2] At the annual conference of the Methodist church in Ireland in 1974 Bradford accused President Harold Sloan of "abuse and prostitution" after Sloan castigated politicians who threatened civil war, aroused passions, and used the Bible as justification for violence.[3][4] Bradford resigned from the Methodist Church a month later, in July 1974.[5] Bradford 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 US and became associated withAmerican Evangelicalism. Nevertheless, Bradford claimed to always remain at heart a Methodist and also rejected suggestions that he was to joinIan Paisley'sFree Presbyterian Church (which he never did).[citation needed]
Bradford first became involved withunionism in 1971 when he joined theOrange Order. From here he became more involved in the political side of the movement and stood as a candidate for theVanguard Progressive Unionist Party in the1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election inSouth Antrim, although he was not elected. Bradford was first elected as Member of Parliament for South Belfast in theFebruary 1974 British general election, this time under the banner of theUnited Ulster Unionist Council (an alliance between the Vanguard, theDemocratic Unionist Party and the anti-Brian Faulkner section of theUlster Unionist Party (UUP) underHarry West), defeating the sitting MPRafton Pounder, a pro-Faulkner Ulster Unionist. Bradford was described in media following his election as a "hardline loyalist".[6] His campaign had been openly supported by thefar-rightNational Front, and at a National Front rally in September 1974,Martin Webster read out a letter of solidarity from Bradford.[7] Bradford was opposed topower-sharing with theSocial Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) as set out in theSunningdale Agreement, describing the proposal as "sheer madness".[8]
Bradford greatly increased his majority in theOctober election, after Pounder dropped out, and largely maintained this increased majority in1979. Between 1974 and 1978 he sat for the Vanguard Party until in February 1978 he joined the UUP (then often called the Official Unionist Party), along with Vanguard leaderBill Craig and most of the membership. He was re-elected in 1979 for the UUP.
In January 1980 Bradford called for IRA members captured by British security forces to be summarily executed as "saboteurs and spies".[9]
He was described as a religious and political hardliner, identifying withBritish Israelism. In one of his speeches he said the causes of the problems in Northern Ireland were down to theRoman Catholic Church,Marxism, andecumenical confusion.[10]
Bradford was gunned down by three IRA members, one of them carrying a submachine gun, on 14 November 1981. He was hosting a politicalsurgery in a community centre inFinaghy,Belfast. Kenneth Campbell, the 29-year-oldProtestant caretaker in the centre, was killed at the front door by the first outburst of gunfire. An RUC bodyguard was then held at gunpoint, while Bradford was shot several times. As the IRA unit got away, the RUC constable fired three shots at the car they were riding in.[11]
Secretary of StateJim Prior was verbally abused and jostled by a group of angryloyalists outside the church at his funeral and hissed at by members of the congregation.Ian Paisley also protested against his attendance.[12]
TaoiseachGarret FitzGerald made an expression of sympathy in the Irish parliamentDáil Éireann, stating:[13]
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".
The IRA described him as "one of the key people responsible for winding up the loyalist paramilitary sectarian machine",[12] a "propagator of anti-Catholic sectarian hatred",[14] and "a prominent motivator of attacks on Catholics".[14] A number of Catholics were killed by loyalists in retaliation.[12] Years later, it was revealed that the security services had been warned three days before Bradford's death about the IRA plot to assassinate him, but did nothing to prevent it, leading to the claim that they were protecting the life of informers within the IRA.[11]
His seat was won byMartin Smyth, also of the UUP, in aby-election in 1982.[15]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forBelfast South 1974–1981 | Succeeded by |
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