Colonel Sir Joseph Alfred Bradney, FSA, BA, JP, DL (11 January 1859, Greet, Tenbury Wells, Shropshire – 21 July 1933) was a British soldier, historian and archaeologist, best known for his multivolume A History of Monmouthshire.
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Joseph Bradney was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge.[1] He acquired, partly by inheritance and partly purchase, an estate at Talycoed, Llanvihangel-Ystern-Llewern, near Monmouth, where he settled at an early age.[2] He entered the army, serving as Captain of the Royal Monmouth Engineer Militia from 1882 to 1892, and Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the 2nd Battalion, Monmouthshire Regiment from 1892 to 1912. In the Territorial Force Reserve from 1912 to 1919, he served in France in 1917-18.[3]
Bradney was High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1889, a county councillor from 1898 to 1924, and an alderman from 1924 to 1928.[2] He was also a Governor and on the Council of the National Library of Wales and the National Museum of Wales. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in Wales. He was appointed a Companion of the Bath in 1911, and knighted in 1924.[2][4]
He wrote extensively on the history of Monmouthshire, his major work being A History of Monmouthshire, published in four volumes comprising 12 parts, from 1904 until 1933.[2][5][6] A final fifth volume, drawing on his notes, was published posthumously. The books have been described as a "monumental survey, extensively illustrated and containing dozens of pedigrees, [which remain] a basic reference work essential for the serious study of local history or genealogy in Monmouthshire."[5]
He was married twice, first to Rosa Jenkins (d. 1927), and then to Florence Prothero.[4] A Latin tablet in St. Michael's Church at Llanvihangel-Ystern-Llewern records his achievements.