Peter Bedford was born in Yorkshire in 1913, son of a Sheffield solicitor. His early years were spent in the shadow of the First World War and he knew as a child the families of some of the soldiers who were shot as deserters, something which deeply affected him then and in later years.
Education followed the pattern of his generation and class: off to cold and dismal boarding prep school aged seven; then Rugby School, where he was mad about cricket and art. At Clare College, Cambridge, he completed but was not in tune with a law degree. His subsequent training as an architect at Sheffield University and the Architectural Association in London was to fuel a passion for buildings of practicality and elegance .
In 1939, still haunted by the traumas of the First World War, he took the painful decision to become a conscientious objector. His war was spent in anguish, a stretch in prison, a period fire-fighting in the East End, one episode leaving him deaf for the rest of his life.
After the War for fifty years he was a successful architect, at the end of his career taking a leading part in the design and development of London’s Chelsea Harbour. When in 1991, at the age of 78 he retired from his practice, he was the same courteous, rather old-fashioned and quietly charming English gentleman his friends had always known.
Then, within weeks, something beyond explanation exploded in him. Working in the tiny kitchen of a cottage in Wiltshire he was transformed into an artist of power, invention, striking versatility and astonishing output. He worked tirelessly each day, one day a week perfecting his etching technique at Putney School of Art. In 1994 he was taken up by The Bruton Street Gallery in London, who mounted an important one-man show of his work. His second career took off.
This phase of inspiration and industry continued, all told, for seven years. In 1998, following a normal day’s work, he suffered a stroke and died five days later.