Stephen Bradshaw OBE

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Stephen Bradshaw OBE was a Paralympian, who represented Great Britain at four Paralympic Games. He was an outstanding campaigner for disability rights and a senior charity leader, best known for his pivotal work with the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) and his chairmanship of the Rights Now! campaign for civil rights for disabled people.

Early Life

Stephen was born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, in 1941. After the war, he and his family returned to London before moving to Forest Row in Sussex where he and his brothers attended the oldest Steiner School in Britain, Michael Hall, on the edge of Ashdown Forest.

School friend John Pearce said of him:

‘Stephen stood out as extremely lively and active - always seeking out where the fun was and keen to join in and be at the centre of the action. He reminded me of Tigger in the Winney the Pooh books - lots of energy, bouncy and full of fun. Neither naughty nor particularly studious, Stephen was a friend to everyone, always smiling and laughing and apparently never down or miserable. Stephen was an ace hockey player and was quite fearless in tackling. This skill was to develop further when he left school and played for the East Grinstead Hockey Team.

Stephen went on to train at the London School of Printing and subsequently set up his own printing business. Stephen suffered a diving accident the day after his 26th birthday in 1967, breaking his neck and sustaining a spinal cord injury at level C7. His school friend remembers visiting him at Stoke Mandeville Hospital:

‘Stephen was amazingly cheerful and eager to demonstrate that he could now move one finger slightly. On a later visit, Stephen showed us the ‘stunts’ that he could do in his chair like balancing on 2 wheels and hopping up and down steps.’

After rehabilitation at Stoke Mandeville he was discharged in 1968 and continued running his printing business.

Having always been interested in sport at school and a keen hockey player, and not long after his discharge from hospital (less than a year after his accident), Stephen took up table tennis.

Paralympic Career

Stephen represented Great Britain at four Paralympic Summer Games; Tel Aviv 1968, Heidelberg 1972, Toronto 1976 and Arnhem 1980, winning 4 gold and 4 bronze medals.

At the Tel Aviv 1968 Paralympic Games, Stephen competed in archery, swimming and table tennis. He won a bronze medal in archery, and a gold medal in the table tennis men’s doubles with teammate Tommy Taylor.

At the Heidelberg 1972 Paralympics, Stephen competed in athletics, swimming, table tennis and archery, earning bronze in the men’s doubles table tennis with Tommy Taylor and bronze in the men’s singles.

Enormous fundraising efforts were needed for the British team to travel to Canada and compete at the Toronto 1976 Games, and Stephen contributed with a sponsored 600m swim. Once there, he competed in table tennis, winning gold in the men’s doubles with Tommy Taylor and gold in men’s singles.

Arnhem 1980 would be Stephen’s last competitive Paralympic Games and he came away with gold in the men’s doubles with Tommy Taylor, and bronze in the men’s singles.

Stephen always said that he competed for sheer enjoyment and lacked a killer instinct to win, despite winning many medals. Over the course of his Paralympic career he won four gold, and four bronze medals. To achieve this success, Stephen practised against non-disabled players. Unable to use his fingers, he strapped the bat to his hand as the only means available to him to play.

Stephen also competed in swimming and table tennis at the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games and in table tennis at the Silver Jubilee Stoke Mandeville Games. Sport proved important in forging many friendships with disabled people that helped shape his later international work with SIA and other organisations.

Career and Honours

Stephen was a founding member of the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) in 1974 and became its first Director in 1979, a post he held for over 20 years until his retirement in 2001.

Stephen’s work with the SIA was characterised by a deep personal commitment to advocacy, inclusion, and systemic change. Over the course of his career, Stephen played a central role in shaping and advancing the organisation’s mission to ensure every person with a spinal cord injury can live a fulfilled life. His leadership was instrumental in expanding the reach of peer-to-peer support, campaigning for equitable access to healthcare, and influencing government policy on disability rights and rehabilitation services.

As Director of the SIA, Stephen spear-headed numerous campaigns for spinal cord injury people such as a new regulation to allow them to take their NHS wheelchairs abroad (‘would we be asked to leave our NHS spectacles at home?’), as well as campaigning against Dept. of Transport regulations which required newly injured people to retake their driving tests.

After retiring as Director, he continued his involvement with the SIA in a consultancy role, sharing his expertise and supporting ongoing advocacy initiatives. Baroness Masham, a fellow Paralympian and President of the SIA said of Stephen, ‘It is no exaggeration to say that, without Stephen, we would not have the Association we have today and, thanks to him, our position of influence in the disability world.’

Stephen was also a founding member, alongside Vic Finkelstein and Mike Oliver, of the British Council of Disabled People (BCODP), representing the SIA at its inaugural meeting in 1981, and played a key role in helping to administer and build the organisation in its early years. The BCODP made a huge impact on the ability of disabled people to plan and realise their own futures, for themselves.

Rights Now! Campaign

From 1992, Stephen served as the founding Chair of the Rights Now campaign, a coalition of disabled people’s organisations and disability charities campaigning for comprehensive civil rights legislation to end discrimination against disabled people in the United Kingdom. Rights Now was one of the most prominent movements calling for a stronger legal framework in the period leading up to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

He chaired the Rights Now campaign for over ten years, during which he brought together both user-led and non-user-led organisations, working to build consensus and maintain unity across a diverse coalition. Through his leadership, he was instrumental in bringing the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (now Disability Rights UK) and BCODP together on anti-discrimination research that ultimately contributed to the passage of the Disability Discrimination Act.

On 9 July 1994, the campaign organised one of its largest protests, a major demonstration in Trafalgar Square and Whitehall, London, which became a landmark event in the UK disability rights movement.

Stephen is pictured in Trafalgar Square in London, during a

Stephen is pictured in Trafalgar Square in London, during a 'Rights Now' protest in 1994. He is wearing a beige jacket and tan coloured trousers. A placard attached to his wheelchair reads: ‘Spinal Injuries Association’.

Stephen served on numerous other national and international committees throughout his career, including as an advisor to HRH The Prince of Wales’s Advisory Group on Disability for eight years, a founder member of Scope and Spirit and as a Trustee of the Snowdon Award Scheme.

In 1985, Stephen received the Snowdon Award for outstanding voluntary work for the benefit of disabled people and in 1994, he was awarded the OBE for services to disabled people, in recognition of his long service and outstanding contribution to the emancipation of disabled people and the spinal injuries community.

Stephen Bradshaw receives his OBE in 1994.

Later Life and Legacy

Alongside his advocacy, Stephen also had a great passion for Jazz and was an avid birdwatcher.

Stephen Bradshaw died on 5 February 2012 at Stoke Mandeville Hospital following a short illness. Colleagues, activists, and community members paid tribute to him as a visionary leader whose personal warmth, tenacity, and commitment helped transform the disability movement in the United Kingdom.

The SIA described him as a “driving force” behind its growth, noting that it was his “single-minded manner and commitment that enabled the association to grow from a small self-help group to its present position as the leading user-led organisation of and for spinal cord injured people”.

Baroness Jane Campbell, who first worked closely with Bradshaw when he was chairing Rights Now, praised his “relentless ability to look for a solution when others would have long given up”, describing how he “patiently worked with every single member to find common ground so we could move forward together and fight for the Disability Discrimination Act with one voice”. She credited him as “one of the quiet leaders who strengthened our armoury by keeping everyone communicating”.

The late Professor of Disability Studies Mike Oliver, described Bradshaw as a “visionary” who “knew a good idea when he saw one”, adding: “Since Guttmann’s retirement it is difficult to think of anyone who has contributed more to the lives of people with spinal injuries in this country than Stephen did. He knew about everything disability related, and he knew everyone in the disability world.”

Jonathan Fogerty, SIA’s Chair, described Bradshaw as a “warm, charming and funny man” who “lived an extraordinary life and dedicated so much of it to bettering the lives of those of us living with spinal cord injury”.

Bradshaw’s legacy lives on through the strengthened user-led movement, the growth of the SIA’s services, and the continued pursuit of equality and civil rights for disabled people. In his honour, the SIA presents the Stephen Bradshaw Award for Rebuilding Lives, given annually at its Rebuilding Lives Conference to recognise individuals who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to the spinal cord injury community.

Stephen’s leadership, compassion, and vision made him one of the most respected and influential voices in the UK disability sector.

With thanks to Stephen’s niece, Lucy Regan, for providing us with Stephen's biographical information, and for donating several items to our archive relating to Stephen’s involvement in the Paralympics and disability sport more widely. These items are held at Buckinghamshire Archives and can be found by searching the Disability Sports Catalogue.

References

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Author: Kat Mace

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