From Nigeria to the West Midlands: Tributes to avid community campaigner, Birmingham academic and former Mayor Ros Bradbury

A stalwart campaigner and community champion who combined her influential academic work with bringing up a young family, has passed away.

Rosalind Josephine Bradbury, died peacefully at home aged 93 on May 22.

Ros moved to Kington, Herefordshire, in the early 1990s, shortly before retiring from her post as lecturer in psychology at the University of Birmingham. 

She grew to love the green hills and valleys and the historical sites of the Welsh Marches, but a leisurely retired life was never on the cards.

In the following 30 years or so, she served as Kington town councillor and two-term mayor, worked as a volunteer for Citizens Advice Bureau, was active in the local Amnesty International and Campaign for the Protection of Rural England groups, spent several years driving the creation of the Kington Area Neighbourhood Plan, delivered meals on wheels, carried out hedgerow surveys, actively supported the Open Arms Kington project to restore the Oxford Arms as a community pub and hub and much more.

Even in the last few years of her life, when dealing with serious health problems, she used the spatial planning system to challenge bad developments and hold decision-makers to account. She was particularly determined to expose the ecological devastation – especially in the rivers Wye, Arrow and Lugg – caused by the expanding, industrial-scale poultry farming, an issue that, as she was painfully aware, is still far from being resolved.

Somehow, Ros found time and energy for other things. She was an incredibly loving and supportive mother and grandmother, a good, loyal friend to a wide circle of people, a passionate and knowledgeable gardener, a talented painter of landscapes and still lifes, an avid observer of current affairs, local, national and international, a book lover, a keen walker and traveller. And she liked a good chat and a gossip.

Ros grew up in Wiltshire, but was sent to boarding school, which she hated. She was the first woman in her family to go to university, gaining a first class honours degree in psychology with anthropology at University College London. 

There in the 1950s she met another anthropology student, Elwyn Bradbury, who was also the first in his family to attend university. 

They married in 1956 and almost immediately moved to Ibadan, Nigeria, where Elwyn was carrying out research. Ros taught O Level biology and gave birth to three children in Nigeria, the fourth arrived soon after they had returned to the UK in 1961.

After a short spell in London and north Wales, the family moved in 1964 to Birmingham, where Elwyn taught anthropology at the university’s newly established Centre of West African Studies. 

Ros joined the university’s engineering department as a researcher in 1965 and became a lecturer in the psychology department in 1968. 

Elwyn’s sudden, unexpected death in 1969, aged just 42, left Ros to bring up four young children. Soon after, she moved her widowed mother-in-law Doris from Wales to live with the family in Birmingham.

Ros continued in her full-time post at the university, where she completed a PhD in industrial psychology. She was a demanding but very popular teacher, and over time became a valued mentor to younger colleagues. 

She took on various research, advisory and administrative responsibilities in the university, and played a key role in introducing psychology as an A level subject at the JMB (now AQA) exam board and in shaping the embryonic national curriculum via her work with examinations boards.

Somehow, she also found time to ensure that life at home, with four not always easy-to-deal-with children and a frail mother-in-law, was happy and enriching. 

The household included cats, rats, doves, hamsters, gerbils, stick insects, tropical fish and a ferret - not all at once, and home activities included music-making, cooking, bee-keeping, cider-making, yoghurt cultivation, and always her beloved gardening.

Family holidays were invariably activity-packed and adventurous, and included trips to Wales, the Lake District, France, Spain and even Australia.

'A force of nature'

Though unfailingly modest herself, Ros has been described in tributes as ‘a lovely person’, ‘an inspiration’ and ‘a force of nature’. 

She will be hugely missed by her children, her seven grandchildren, her daughters-in-law, her niece and nephew and her many friends.

Town councillor and former council clerk Esther Rolls said: “Ros was a mayor twice and in my opinion a very good one. 

“It was a time when some councillors had strong views so debate was inevitable. 

“Ros always had Kington’s best interests at heart and was not afraid to voice her concerns. 

“I recall her sitting in Duke St to do a vehicle count during a contentious planning application with the idea of giving an informed view back to the town council for debate. 

“Ros also took part in the Burgage Walls survey which is still relevant today. 

“Ros was a champion of many causes and loathed to see wrongdoing to our countryside. All in all she was a wonderful person who will be missed.”

The current Kington Town Council said they will pay tribute to Ros at their next full council meeting on June 16.

They added: “Ros made a huge contribution to the town both as a councillor, past mayor and simply as an individual. She will be hugely missed.”

Councillor Bob Widdwoson said: “Ros Bradbury was both a colleague and a friend. We shared time as town councillors and for many years as committee members of Herefordshire CPRE. 

“Dr Bradbury was a stalwart campaigner for Herefordshire’s countryside and for many humanitarian causes. As Mayor, town councillor and in many other community activities her contribution to Kington will always be remembered and I will miss her as my friend.”

A funeral service for Ros will take place at Offa’s Orchard Green Burial Ground, Gladestry on Sunday, June 15 2025 at 1pm 

Anyone who wishes to take along flowers, is requested to do so from their own garden. 

For further information contact A.W. Hughes & Son, Independent Family Funeral Directors, Kington on 01544 370217