Annual Report of the Council. 



xxxi 



cabinet-maker in Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, his native town, 

 but in 1849 he sailed for New York and, shortly afterwards, his 

 father having joined him, they formed a homestead society 

 along with several other Englishmen, and purchased land near 

 Milwaukee, in the State of Wisconsin, U.S.A., where a number 

 of English families are still settled. Mr. Bradley then bound 

 himself to a carver of wood and stone in Philadelphia, and, as a 

 carver, travelled considerably in the United States. At this 

 time, he spent his leisure hours in nature study and in science 

 (as taught in those days), more especially in the study of 

 chemistry. 



Returning to England, Mr. Bradley became in 1857 a 

 student at the old Mechanics' Institute, from which the Man- 

 chester School of Technology has descended, and ultimately 

 passed an examination, being one of the ten successful candi- 

 dates out of the 160 examined, which gave him the position of 

 student-analyst in the Government Inland Revenue Laboratory 

 at Somerset House, London. Here he had a three years' 

 course of study under Professor Hofmann and other well-known 

 scientists, at the end of which he was one of the three First 

 Prizemen, obtaining 97J per cent, of the total marks awarded. 

 He thus became a fully qualified analytical chemist in the civil 

 service, and on several occasions he was sent by the Depart- 

 ment to different parts of Great Britain and Ireland to visit the 

 various distilleries, breweries and other manufactories and report 

 upon the materials used and the product obtained with a view 

 to the detection of adulterants. Equipped with this experience, 

 he retired from the civil service, and became a consulting, 

 analytical and manufacturing chemist and a successful inventor, 

 one of his inventions, which bad a large sale and is still used, 

 being an apparatus for purifying pitching yeast for use in the 

 process of brewing. When living in London Mr. Bradley joined 

 the Chemical Society, ultimately becoming a life-member, and 

 was in frequent attendance at its monthly meetings along with 

 Richard Bannister, W. H. Perkin, II. E. Roscoe, T. E. Thorpe, 

 and other distinguished chemists of those days. 



