Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Bradford KCB, Colonel of the 94th Regiment of Foot, 1829 (c)

Oil on panel, possibly by James Pardon, 1829 (c).

Thomas Bradford (1777-1853) was commissioned into the 4th (The King's Own) Regiment of Foot on 20 October 1793. In 1795, he was promoted to major into the Loyal Nottingham Fencibles and took part in the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, in 1806 he took part in the Buenos Aires Expedition. Bradford then served during the Peninsular War (1808-1814), and was present at the battles of Vimeiro (1808), Corunna (1809) and Salamanca (1812). In 1813, he was promoted to major general and then commanded a Portuguese division at Vitoria, San Sebastian, and the Nive (1813).

Bradford was wounded at Bayonne (1814) and returned to Britain where he took up a staff appointment with the northern district. He then commanded the 7th Division of the Army of Occupation in France from 1815 to 1817, and the forces in Scotland from 1819 until he was promoted to lieutenant general in May 1825. He then became Commander-in-Chief of the troops in Bombay. Bradford returned to Britain in 1829 and was made Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) and Knight Grand Cross of the Hanoverian Order (GCH). From 1829 he was Colonel of the 30th (or the Cambridgeshire) Regiment of Foot.