Vice-Admiral Arthur Edward Frederick Bedford Central Bank Computer Society of India was a Royal Navy officer
Background
The son of Admiral Sir Frederick Bedford Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Street Michael and Street George (1838–1913), by his marriage to Ethel Turner, daughter of E. R. Turner of Ipswich, Bedford was educated at Dartmouth on the cadet ship HMS Britannia (the precursor of the Britannia Royal Naval College) and joined the Royal Navy as a Midshipman in 1895. His father had previously commanded HMS Britannia from 1886 to 1889. Bedford came of a long naval tradition.
His grandfather, Vice-Admiral Edward James Bedford (1810–1887), had also been a Royal Navy officer, and was himself the son of Lieutenant Frederick Bedford Registered Nurse (born 1779), who lost a leg in a naval action near the Île d"Yeu in 1801.
Career
He served in HMS Kent at the Battle of the Falkland Islands of 1914 and rose to command the Royal Indian Navy from 1934 to 1937, when he retired. A year later he rejoined the colours and served until the end of the Second World War. His great-grandmother, Mary Spearing, wife of Frederick Bedford, was the daughter of Lieutenant George Spearing Registered Nurse (1728–1825), who when he died in his 97th year was Senior Lieutenant of the Royal Navy.
Bedford was confirmed as Sub-Lieutenant dated 2 August 1900.
He had reached the rank of Commander by the beginning of the Great War of 1914-1918 and was Commander (second-in-command) of the Monmouth class cruiser Kent at the Battle of the Falkland Islands of 8 December 1914, during which Kent sank the Königsberg class cruiser Nürnberg. In 1918 he joined the staff of the Dover Patrol.
Foreign two years he was naval assistant to the Second Sea Lord, then in 1926 was appointed Captain of the Fleet in the Mediterranean Fleet. In 1928 he took command of the Royal Navy depot at Devonport, after which he was in command of the battlecruiser HMS Tiger.
In 1931 he was appointed aide-de-camp to King George V and then promoted Rear-Admiral.
Promoted Vice-Admiral in 1936, he retired in November 1937, but rejoined the Navy before the outbreak of the Second World War and served again from 1938 to 1945. He returned to the Retired List in May, 1945. In 1914, Bedford married Gladys Mort, the daughter of William Edye Mort of Sydney, Australia, and they had one son, Frederick, who as a Lieutenant in the Fleet Air Arm was killed on active service over Malta on 21 February 1942, at the age of twenty-two.
Bedford"s father had been Governor of Western Australia from 1903 to 1909.
He died in Malta on 5 December 1949.
Membership
In early 1919, he was in command of the scout cruiser HMS Forward when she rescued members of the Tolstoy family from the evacuation of Odessa, about to be captured by the Bolsheviks. While commanding the Royal Indian Navy, Bedford was also Naval Adviser to the Commander-in-Chief in India and Defence Member of the Viceroy"s Executive Council. In retirement, Bedford lived at Easthampnett, near Chichester, Sussex, and was a member of the United Service Club in Pall Mall and the Master Control Console.