Bedford, Randolph, 1868-1941

Author and politician. Journalist at Broken Hill and Melbourne. Travelled widely in Australia, partly through mining areas. Author of True eyes and the whirlwind - 1903, The share of strength - 1905. Entered the Queensland Legislative Assembly.

Author and politician; in 1917 he entered the Legislative Council; in 1923 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly as Labour member for Warrego.

Randolph Bedford, born in 1868 in Sydney, became a journalist in the 1880s, founder of 'The Clarion' (1897-1909). Author of 5 novels, countless short stories, poetry, travel, descriptive and autobiographical work and the play 'The white man's land' which was staged in Melbourne in 1909. He was a member of the Qld. Legislative Council, 1917-1923, and of its Legislative Assembly, 1923-1941.

Randolph Bedford, born in Sydney, 1868, was a mining promoter, Labour politician and author. He was involved in the silver-lead field at Mt. Isa as part of his mining career. In 1917 he was nominated to the Legislative Council in Queensland and for many years held the seat of Warrego in the Legislative Assembly. He also wrote novels and plays and wrote for The Bulletin and The Age.

Randolph Bedford was born on 27 June 1868 at Camperdown, Sydney, the child of Alfred Bedford and his wife Elizabeth, nee Wilcox. After leaving school at age 14 Bedford worked in many different jobs in Sydney and Western New South Wales. Upon reading The Bulletin newspaper, Bedford was inspired to become a journalist. In subsequent years he wrote for the Broken Hill Argus, The Adelaide Advertiser and The Age in Melbourne. Bedford was married to Mary Henrietta Arrowsmith on 14 February 1889 and in 1896 founded the mining and literary journal, The Clarion. Norman and Percy Lindsay and Ambrose and Will Dyson were contributors to The Clarion. They and Bedford were also the co-founders of the Bohemian Ishmael Club.

Bedford was a prolific writer and published his first novel "True eyes and the whirlwind" in 1903. Throughout his life Bedford had considerable mining interests but ran into financial difficulties after 1909, the year The Clarion also failed. Bedford and his wife separated in 1912. in 1915 he moved to Brisbane with Ada Billings. In Brisbane Bedford wrote for The Worker and in 1917 entered politics as a member of the Legislative Council. After its abolition in 1922, Bedford became the Labor member for Warrego in the Legislative Assembly from 1923 until his death in 1941. His autobiography, Naught to thirty-three was published posthumously in 1944.