One of the great legacies of St Bede's College is the generational connections that many of our families have with the school.

As you may have read already in this newsletter, we are currently asking our old boy community to email us with their family's connections to St Bede's so we can capture this in our new database. This information will help us to better illustrate the rich history of generational connection that has flourished at St Bede's over the past 112 years and ensure that all family connections within the school, whether big or small, aren't lost over time.

It is not uncommon to speak with a current student or an old boy and learn that their brothers, father, uncles, cousins, and grandfather all went to St Bede's and it is wonderful to know that the Old Boys' Association's database now has the functionality to record these associations and link old boys profiles together. 

One great example of a family who has a long connection to St Bede's is the Bradley family. Our database shows that over 40 of our old boys have the surname Bradley, however today we are looking specifically at the Bradley clan who descended from William Orton Bradley, son of Orton Guthrie Bradley of Orton Bradley Park fame.

As you will see in the family-tree illustration below, William Orton Bradley's decision to send his two sons to St Bede's in the 1920's/30's, lead to a long family association with the school not only through the Bradley line but also through his two daughters Margaret and Barbara, whose family lines of O'Connor and Lenihan are equally extensive.

Regular readers of our old boys' newsletter may recognise Bernard Orton Bradley's name (1927-1930) from our annual ANZAC Day Roll of Honour. Barney, as he was known to his family and friends, was 30 years old when he was killed during World War II at the Battle of Monte Cassino on the 26th of May 1944.

We would like to say a big thank you to Fr Mick O'Connor (1954-1958), Shaun Bradley (1981-1985), and Ben Lenihan (1988-1992) for helping us to piece together their family's large connection to St Bede's, and yes the Community Office has connected (or at least started to connect!) them all in our database.

We look forward to hearing about YOUR family connections to St Bede's soon!