Benjamin Francis Bradley

Portrait of 25 of the Meerut Prisoners taken outside the jail. Back row (left to right): K. N. Sehgal, S. S. Josh, H. L. Hutchinson, Shaukat Usmani, Benjamin Francis Bradley, A. Prasad, P. Spratt, G. Adhikari. Middle Row: R. R. Mitra, Gopen Chakravarti, Kishori Lal Ghosh, L. R. Kadam, D. R. Thengdi, Goura Shanker, S. Bannerjee, K. N. Joglekar, P. C. Joshi, Muzaffar Ahmed. Front Row: M. G. Desai, D. Goswami, R.S. Nimbkar, S.S. Mirajkar, S.A. Dange, S. V. Ghate, Gopal Basak.

Benjamin Francis Bradley, later known as "Ben Bradley", was born in Walthamstow, London, in January 1898.[4] His father was a "time-keeper" at a motorworks and a night-watchman at a warehouse.[4] Bradley's parents had 8 children, two of which died in infancy.[4] In 1914 at the age of 16, Bradley left school to work as an engineer's apprentice.[4] After briefly serving with the British Navy during World War I between 1916-1918, he returned to working in Britain as an engineer until 1921.[5][4] He was a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union from its foundation in 1920. Bradley was also active within the National Unimployed Workers Movement led by Wal Hannington,[4] and the Metalworkers Minority Movement.[5]

In 1921 Bradley signed up to work as an engineer in India under a two-year contract.[6] During his time in India he worked in the Rawalpindi area where he worked supervising a large workshop.[6] He was troubled by the terrible working conditions and low pay that the workers received.[6] Once he returned to Britain in early 1923, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), and became a trade union activist and a shop steward in an engineering works.[6] He once led a successful labour strike shortly before the 1926 United Kingdom general strike.[6] As a part of joint efforts by the CPGB and the Soviet Union to train Indian communist leaders belonging to the Workers and Peasants Party, Bradley returned to India in Autumn of 1927, travelling with fellow CPGB activist Philip Spratt to Bombay (now Mumbai).[6][7][8] Soon afterwards, Bradley became an Executive Committee member of both the All India Trade Union Congress, the Workers and Peasants Party, and the Vice-President of a newly formed mill-workers' union (Girni Kamgar Union) which reached a membership of 50,000 by the end of 1928.[6] He also held additional roles in trade unions dedicated to railway workers.[6]

In March 1929, both Bradley and Spratt were arrested as a part of attacks by the British colonial occupation against trade unionism, communism, and the Indian independence movement.[6] Bradley, Spratt, and many other communists and trade union leaders were charged under section 121A of the Indian Penal Code with "conspiracy to deprive the King-Emperor of the Sovereignty of British India".[9][10][11] This trial, which began at the end of January 1930, became known as the Meerut Conspiracy Case.[6] Bradley and his fellow accused were represented by the future Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.[4] The trial, which had no jury, ended in August 1932 and was followed by 5 months of "judicial deliberations".[6] Bradley was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison,[12][13] but was released in November 1933 and returned to the UK 2 months later.[14][5]

During his imprisonment, campaigns were started demanding the release of Bradley and his fellow prisoners.[14] In April 1929, communist led protesters held a demonstration at the Marble Arch to Victoria Station in London, which the British police responded to by forcefully removing all ethnic Indians from the area.[15] The police would commit multiple violent attacks against peaceful Indian demonstrators in England who campaigned for the Meerut prisoners.[15] These campaigns were highly successful in publicising the plight of Indian republicans and raising public opposition to the sentencing Bradley and his fellow prisoners.[5]