In Memoriam
FELLOWS, STAFF, AN D ST U DEN TS
John Bradfield 20 May 1925–13 October 2014 Fellow of Trinity 1947–2014 Junior Bursar 1951–1956 Senior Bursar 1956–1992 We print below the obituary that appeared anonymously in the Daily Telegraph on 18 October 2014 followed by his son Mr Bob Bradfield’s address at the memorial service on 7 March 2015. From the Daily Telegraph Sir John Bradfield, who has died aged 89, was an outstandingly successful and enterprising college bursar who turned Trinity College, Cambridge, into the richest of all the Oxbridge colleges, while kick-starting what has become known as the ‘Cambridge Phenomenon’ – the explosion of technology, life sciences, and service companies that has occurred in the city since the 1970s – by founding Europe’s first ‘science park’. Under his predecessor, Tresilian Nicholas, the focus of Trinity’s investment portfolio had been agricultural land. After Bradfield stepped into his shoes in 1956, the College increased the percentage of its capital held in equities and pursued a strategic move towards commercial property development. The foundation for Trinity’s huge financial success in the following years was the acquisition by Nicholas in 1933 of the Trimley estate of nearly 3,800 acres in Suffolk, along the road from Ipswich to the then derelict port of Felixstowe. Nicholas thought that the estate might become valuable for housing development; but as the port, free from the stranglehold of the old Dock Labour Scheme, began to develop in the early 1960s under new ownership, Bradfield surmised that, with Trinity’s help, it could become a competitor to Rotterdam and Le Havre. He borrowed money to put up buildings to let on part of the estate, and, after helping to fight off nationalisation plans by the Labour administration in the 1970s, made use of his contacts book to persuade Margaret Thatcher’s government to introduce enabling legislation, setting in motion a process which has seen Felixstowe develop, mostly on Trinity-owned land, into Britain’s largest container port.
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