Page 18 - PBCMarch2021

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Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine Volume 18 No.1 March 2021 18
Sir Antonio Brady - President 1877-1880

Joseph Smiggers recently received correspondence from a
Mrs Gill Stapleton who is the 6 x great-granddaughter of one of
our earliest Presidents, Sir Antonio Brady. From subsequent
dialogue she informed me that having
joined the Navy in 1854, he held
several posts in victualling, becoming
the first Superintendent of the
Admiralty for purchasing and
contracts, before retiring & being
knighted by Queen Victoria at
Windsor in 1870 (the year our Club
was formed). He was also a famous
naturalist (fossil hunter) with many of his ‘finds’ held in the
Natural History Museum. He was a social reformer, and very
much involved in the ‘Preservation of Epping Forest for the
People’ and with the Church. Sir Antonio died in 1881 from
‘an affection to the heart’ and is buried in the family vault at
St John’s Church in Stratford London.

His son, Nicholas Brady, was Rector of Wennington
Church in Essex, and son-in-law William Emery,
Archdeacon of Ely Cathedral. Nicholas, owned Rainham
Hall (now a NT property) and was known to be a keen
bicyclist, but so far we cannot find any record of him
having been a member of the Club as well.

(Nicholas with his 3-wheeler)

Sir Antonio appears on the Club Officers Memorial board (held by Bulman), but his
connection with the Pickwick Bicycle Club remains unclear, although he was one of a number
of VIPs invited to join the Club in its early years. Research into the Metropolitan Grand
Lodge archives doesn’t show him to have been a member of the Pickwick Lodge, like so many
others. Our search will continue, but we are extremely grateful to Gill, for providing this
historical information about another of our earliest members.