ERIC BEDFORD: BORN 1909
Architect of the Coronation Arches and the BT Tower.
Eric Bedford was born near Halifax in Yorkshire. He was educated at Thornton Grammar School and then undertook an architectural apprenticeship in Leicester. In 1934 he won a RIBA medal for his design for a railway terminal. Two years later he joined the Ministry of Public Building and Works, and, after the Second World War, was appointed its youngest-ever Chief Architect. At the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Bedford had responsibility for significant elements of the overall design, including the Coronation Arches.
Given its importance to government communications, the BT Tower was designed to withstand nuclear attack, and in 1971 it was relatively undamaged by a bomb placed in the tower's revolving restaurant by the Angry Brigade. Bedford's comment was recorded as; "I made it to last, bombers or not". In addition to the tower, he oversaw or undertook a number of other important governmental commissions – both within the UK, including the departmental buildings on Marsham Street, Westminster, and offices for MPs within the Palace of Westminster; and overseas, including embassy buildings in Warsaw, Washington, D.C. and Jakarta.
After retiring to France to be near his daughter, Bedford returned to England following the death of his wife in 1977. He lived for many years in the village of Hanley Swan near Malvern, Worcestershire, and died in a nursing home in Worcester in 2001.
PLACES
Coronation Arches in the Mall, 1953.
BT Tower, 60 Cleveland Mews, W1T 4JZ.
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