Henry Bradbury (Born 1829) is known for his book The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland with Editor John Lindley and author Thomas Moore published in 1855. This English writer on printing was the son of William Bradbury from whom he got a lot of inspiration for his art. He had a brother called Hardwick Bradbury with whom he went into a publishing business. From 1856 Bradbury took an interest in banknote printing, especially the security aspects of it, and set up a business called Bradbury & Wilkinson. In his printing process, Bradbury used an innovative process invented by Alois Auer and Andreas Worring. Bradbury had studied this discovery while in Vienna and went ahead to patent his own improved version in London. Even though he improved on the technique, he never acknowledged that the original idea came from Auer.
The technique involved pressing a specimen onto a soft and thin lead plate to leave an impression with a very fine detail. Auer was not happy because he was not acknowledged by Bradbury and he accused him of being a liar and a drunkard. A controversy followed and Bradbury became depressed. In 1860, at the young age of 29, he decided to commit suicide by drinking prussic acid mixed with soda water. Some also hold the belief that he died as a result of lead poisoning because he was using lead in his printing process. His art still draws a lot of attention from artists and non-artists as well, and they are highly priced by many collectors.
