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2025 Week 18: Institutions #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

 John Bradfute was born in 1763 at Dunsyre in South Lanarkshire, the second son of the Church of Scotland minister, the Rev. James Bradfute, and grandson of my 5 x great grandfather, also Rev. James Bradfute (1680-1758).

As a second son, it is unlikely that John was going to follow his father, grandfather and great grandfather before him into the ministry. His elder brother, James, indeed did so, becoming an ordained priest in the Church of England in 1786. James had been a Deacon at Rose Castle in Cumbria before becoming a priest at Auckland Castle in County Durham. John, however, chose a different path. 

At the age of 18, John became apprenticed to Edinburgh printer, Alexander Kincaid. Nine years later, he was taken as a partner into the printing and bookseller business by his mother's brother, John Bell (also son of a minister). John Bell had himself once been at apprentice to Kincaid, but had started up in business by himself in 1771. So it was in 1789 that John Bradfute became a partner in Bell and Bradfute and this new company soon made its mark as a prolific publisher of academic books - law, medicine, economics, maths, natural sciences, philosophy, history, travel, grammar, ancient and modern languages.

Bell and Bradfute published the leading authors of the Scottish Enlightenment - Blair, Fergusson, Hume, Kames, Monboddo, Reid and Adam Smith. At the start of the 19th century they republished texts by Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, James Fenimore Cooper, Schiller and Victor Hugo amongst others.

The bookshop and stationer's stood at 4 St. Giles Street in Edinburgh, a corner location near Saint Giles Cathedral opposite Parliament Square.

In 1816, John was also elected as a Director of the Commercial Banking Company of Scotland, a bank that had been founded in 1810 to rival the three major Scottish banks - The Bank of Scotland, The Royal Bank of Scotland and the British Linen Bank. This would have been quite a lucrative post.  During this time John Bradfute was living at 22 George Square, a dwelling that is still there, a category A listed building, having been built around 1767-79.

22 George Square, Edinburgh.

John died in 1837 and is buried in Greyfriars Churchyard in Edinburgh. He died a wealthy man. Never having married, his beneficiaries in his will include his sister Elizabeth to whom he awarded £7000 - in today's money that would be about £500,000!

Tombstone of John Bradfute in Greyfriars Cemetery

Both James and John can be said to be part of different institutions. The brothers are my first cousins once removed.





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