BRADSHAW, JAMES (1636?–1702), ejected minister, of the Bradshaws of Haigh, near Wigan, the elder and royalist branch of the family, was born at Hacken. in the parish of Bolton, Lancashire, about 1636. He was educated at the Bolton grammar school and Corpus Christ College, Oxford, but did not graduate. This was due to the influence of his uncle Holmes, then a minister in Northamptonshire, under whom he studied divinity, Returning to Lancashire, he was ordained minister of Hindley. With other Lancashire ministers, he was concerned in the royalist rising under Sir George Booth [q. v.] He was ejected in 1662, but, continuing to preach, he suffered some months' imprisonment at the instance of his relative Sir Roger Bradshaw, an episcopalian magistrate. On the indulgence of 1672 he got possession of Rainford Chapel,in the parish of Prescot. The neighbouring clergy now and then preached for him, read-ing the prayer-book; hence the churchwarden was able to say 'yes' to the question at visitations: 'ave you common prayer read yearly in your chapel?' Pearson, the bishop of Chester, would not sustain informations against peaceable ministers, so Bradshaw was not disturbed. He was also one of the Monday lecturers at Bolton. He died at Rainford in 1702, in his sixty-seventh year, his death being the result of a mishap while riding to preach. His son Ebenezer, presbyterian minister at Ramsgate, was ordained 22 June 1694 in Dr. Annesley's meeting-house, Bishopsgate Within, near Little St. Helen's (this was at the first public ordination among presbyterians after the Restoration). Bradshaw published:
- . 'The Sleepy Spouse of Christ alarm'd,' &c., 1677, 12mo (sermons on Cant. v., preface by Nathaniel Vincent, M.A., who died 21 June 1697, aged 52).
- 'The Trial and Triumph of Faith.'
Halley confuses him (ii. 184) with another James Bradshaw, born at Darcy Lever, near Bolton, Lancashire, educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, presbyterian rector of Wigan, who in 1644 encouraged the siege of Lathom House by sermons from Jerem. xv. 14, in which he compared Lathom's seven towers to the seven heads of the beast. He was superseded at Wigan by Charles Hotham for not observing the parliamentary fast, but called to Macclesfield, whence he was ejected in 1662. He preached at Houghton Chapel, and subsequently at Bradshaw Chapel, reading some of the prayers, but not subscribing. He died in May 1683, aged 73.
[Calamy's Account, 1713, pp. 16, 123; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, pp. 17, 140; Palmer's Nonconf. Memorial, 1802, i. 337, ii. 364; Hatfield's Manch. Socin. Controversy, 1825, p. 140; Halley's Lanc., its Puritanism and Nonconf., 1869, i. 391, 473, ii. 97, 105, 108, 185, 238; Cat. Dr. Williams's Library, 184 1, ii. 432; Fisher's Comp. and Key to Hist. of Eng. 1832. pp. 535, 757; Calamy's Hist. Acc. of my own Life, 2nd ed. 1830, p. 349; information from Rev. P. Vance-Smith, Hindley.]
BRADSHAW, JAMES (1717–1746), Jacobite rebel, born in 1717, was the only child of a well-to-do Roman catholic in trade at Manchester. He was educated at the free school, and learned some classics there. About 1734 he was bound apprentice to Mr. Charles Worral, a Manchester factor, trading at the Golden Ball, Lawrence Lane, London. In 1740 Bradshaw was called back to Manchester through the illness of his father, and after his father's death he found himself in possession of a thriving trade and several thousand pounds. Very quickly (about 1741) he took a London partner, Mr. James Dawson, near the Axe Inn, Aldermanbury, and he married a Miss Waggstaff of Manchester. She and an only child both died in 1743. Bradshaw thereupon threw in his lot with the Pretender. He was one of the rebel courtiers assembled at Carlisle on 10 Nov. 1745. He visited his own city on 29 Nov., where he busied himself in recruiting at the Bell Inn. He was a member of the council of war, and received his fellow-rebels in his own house. Having accepted a captaincy in Colonel Towneley's regiment he marched to Derby, paying his men out of his own purse; he headed his company on horseback in the skirmish at Clifton Moor; he attended the Pretender's levée on the retreat through Carlisle in December; and preferring to be in Lord Elcho's troop of horse when the rebels were striving to keep together in Scotland in the early weeks of 1746, he fought at Falkirk. He was at Stirling, Perth, Strathbogie, and finally at Culloden, on 16 April in the same year, where in the rout he was taken prisoner. His passage to London was by ship, with forty-two fellow-prisoners. He was taken to the New Gaol, Southwark; his trial took place at St. Margaret's Hill on 27 Oct. On that occasion he was dressed in new green cloth, and bore himself somewhat gaily. His counsel urged that he had always had 'lunatick pranks,' and had been driven entirely mad by the death of his wife and child. He was found guilty, and having been kept in gaol nearly a month more, he was executed on Kennington Common, 28 Nov. 1746, aged only 29.
[Howell's State Trials, xviii. 415-24.]
BRADSHAW, JOHN (1602–1659), regicide, was the second surviving son of Henry Bradshaw, a well-to-do country gentleman,
