Thomas Bradford was born on May 4, 1745 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. was the eldest son of William Bradford, the "patriot-printer. " His mother, Rachel, was the daughter of Thomas Budd who with George Keith opposed in 1692 Lieutenant-Governor Lloyd in the Quaker wrangle that resulted in the withdrawal of William Bradford, the first printer of that name, from Philadelphia to New York.
Thomas Bradford attended what is now the University of Pennsylvania for several years.
After attending the University in Pennsylvania, Thomas Bradford went to work for his father on the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser in 1762, a paper that first bore the joint imprint of father and son on September 4, 1766.
He took an active part in resisting the Stamp Act and was one of the principal promoters of the movement among the merchants of Pennsylvania and its sister state of Delaware to have no commercial transactions with England until the obnoxious act was repealed.
The partnership with his father lasted until the occupation of Philadelphia by the British troops in 1777, when publication was temporarily suspended. After the evacuation of that city by the British, the Journal resumed publication with the name of only the son in its imprint.
During the Revolutionary War Bradford also served as captain of a militia company and later as deputy commissary-general of prisoners in the American army where he had the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
The business rather than the editorial side of newspaper publishing was always the more interesting to him and doubtless had much to do with his decision to start a daily paper that specialized in the news of the business world. This paper, started by him in 1797, was called the Merchants' Daily Advertiser.
After the death of his younger brother, the Hon. William Bradford, attorney-general of the United States, he came into possession of the larger part of the estate. The pressure of outside business interests practically forced him to turn over the management of the Merchants' Daily Advertiser to his son Samuel.
The latter, being more interested in politics, changed the name of the paper in 1798 to the True American which was the pioneer paper to have a literary supplement. The son, however, lacked the executive ability of his father who had to resume active management of the paper in 1801.
In spite of the fact that Bradford had cherished since the days of the Stamp Act a hatred of England, he was perfectly willing to publish the political pamphlets of William Cobbett who was attacking everything that was French and was stoutly defending England. Fearful of the windows of his print shop, Bradford insisted that the pamphlets should appear anonymously. In fact, he insisted upon such high rates of payment that he practically forced Cobbett to become a publisher--something that Bradford later regretted because of the extensive sale of Cobbett's pamphlets.
After the death in 1805 of his wife, Mary Fisher, Bradford took even a more energetic interest in civic affairs. After taking a trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh on horseback in order to inspect several tracts of land scattered over several counties in western Pennsylvania, he seems to have suffered no physical inconvenience from the trip, since immediately upon his return to Philadelphia he resumed active control of his affairs which in his absence had been managed by his second son, William Bradford, who later became a bookseller in Philadelphia.
He did not leave as direct an imprint upon the journalism of his day as did the other editorial members of the Bradford family, because he was chiefly interested in the commercial side, yet the financial page and the book page of the modern metropolitan journal go back in their evolution to innovations made by him. His remarkable health continued until about six months before his death when he suddenly lost the use of his eyes. Accustomed to activity, he chafed under this affliction until his death in his ninety-fourth year.
Bradford was especially active in the American Philosophical Society of which he was a charter member. He was also a member of the Philadelphia's Philosophical Society.
In spite of close application to business, he retained remarkable health.
In 1768 Thomas Bradford was married to Mary Fisher. His elder son, Samuel, had become a publisher in New York. One other son, Thomas, became a member of the Philadelphia bar. In addition to these three sons, he had three daughters.
