Joseph Bradney
Colonel Sir Joseph Alfred Bradney, (11 January 1859 – 21 July 1933) was a British soldier, historian and archaeologist, best known for his multivolume "A History of Monmouthshire from the Coming of the Normans into Wales down to the Present Time". Life. Joseph Bradney was born at Greet, Tenbury Wells, Shropshire, and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Bradney was High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1889, Deputy lieutenant of the county, and a county councillor from 1898 to 1924. He was also a governor and on the Council of the National Library of Wales and the National Museum  of Wales. He was a member of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. He was appointed a Companion of the Bath in 1911, and knighted in 1924. He wrote extensively on the history of Monmouthshire, his major work being "A History of Monmouthshire from the Coming of the Normans into Wales down to the Present Time", published in twelve volumes between 1904 and 1933. A final volume, drawing on his notes, was published posthumously. The books have been described as a "monumental survey, extensively illustrated and containing dozens of pedigrees, [which remains] a basic reference  work essential for the serious study of local history or genealogy in Monmouthshire." He shared an interest in vulgar limericks with the antiquarian Egerton Phillimore though Bradney's letters to Phillimore were often written in Latin. He was married twice, first to Rosa Jenkins (d. 1927), and then to Florence Prothero. A Latin tablet in the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Llanvihangel-Ystern-Llewern records his achievements. Section::::"A History of Monmouthshire". Bradney's History comprised twelve volumes, divided by the traditional administrative areas of Hundreds. The work covered six of the seven hundreds of Monmouthshire. Between 1991 and  1993, the history was reprinted by Academy Books, and subsequently the Merton Priory Press, as an 80% sized facsimile. The work was arranged slightly differently to the original history, the indices were included in their respective Parts, and a fifth volume covering the last Hundred of Newport, was compiled from Bradney's manuscript notes by Dr Madeleine Gray. The re-ordered works were: