Civil servant and miscellaneous writer. The son of Charles Bedford (Deputy Usher of the Exchequer, as Horace Walpole’s substitute). Educated at Westminster School (adm. 1784), but did not attend university. Assistant clerk in the Exchequer Office, 1792–1803; clerk of the cash book, 1803–1806; clerk of the registers and issues, 1806–1822; chief clerk in the auditor’s office, 1822–1834. Admitted to Gray’s Inn, 26 January 1797. Bedford did not marry, despite regularly seeking Southey’s advice on his love affairs. Bedford and Southey met at Westminster School and their friendship endured for the remainder of their lives. Bedford had literary inclinations. He was involved in the ill-fated Flagellant (1792), contributed poems to the Monthly Magazine (1797) and the first volume of the Annual Anthology (1799), and privately published his translation of Musaeus, The Loves of Hero and Leander (1797). He worked with Southey on Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) and contributed an unsigned notice of Southey’s Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814) to the Quarterly Review. His other publications included A Letter to the Right Hon. William Pitt on his Political Experiments (1804, anonymous) and a Memoir of Barré Charles Roberts (1814).