Ralph Bradley

Ralph Bradley (1717–1788) was an English conveyancing barrister.

Life Bradley was born on 22 September 1717 at Greatham, County Durham and educated at Durham School. He was a contemporary of James Charles Booth, who has been called the patriarch of modern conveyancing. Bradley was called to the bar at Gray's Inn, and practised at Stockton-on-Tees for half a century. He is said to have managed the concerns of almost the whole of County Durham, and, though a provincial counsel, his opinions were everywhere received with the greatest respect. His drafts, like Booth's, were prolix, but some of them were in later use as precedents in the northern counties.

Bradley died at Stockton-on-Tees on 28 December 1788, and was buried in the parish church of Greatham, where a mural monument was erected to his memory on the north side of the chancel.

Legacy Bradley by his will left £40,000 on trust for the purchase of books calculated to promote the interests of religion and virtue in Great Britain and the happiness of mankind. Lord Thurlow, by a decree in chancery, set aside the charitable disposition of Bradley in favour of his next of kin.