Katherine Bradley was born on 27 October 1846 in Birmingham, England, the daughter of Charles Bradley, a tobacco manufacturer, and of Emma (née Harris). Her grandfather, also Charles Bradley, was a prominent follower and financial backer of prophetess Joanna Southcott and her self-styled successor John "Zion" Ward.[1] She attended lectures at the Collège de France in 1868, and in 1874 she attended a course at Newnham College, Cambridge specially designed for women, however did not receive a degree for it.
Bradley's elder sister, Emma, married James Robert Cooper in 1860, and went to live in Kenilworth, where their daughter, Edith Emma Cooper was born on 12 January 1862. Emma Cooper became an invalid for life after the birth of her second daughter, Amy, and Katharine Bradley, being her sister, stepped in to become the legal guardian of her niece Edith Cooper.[2]
Bradley was for a time involved with Ruskin's utopian project. She published first under the pseudonym Arran Leigh, a nod to Elizabeth Barrett. Edith adopted the name Isla Leigh for their first joint publication, Bellerophôn.
From the late 1870s, when Edith was at University College, Bristol, they agreed to live together and were, over the next 40 years, lesbian lovers,[3] and co-authors. Their first joint publication as Michael Field was "Callirhöe and Fair Rosamund" in 1884. The Athenaeum noted that 'the famous Faun song in 'Callirrhoé,' which has found its way into many anthologies, the Fairy songs in 'Fair Rosamund,' and the whole of the poignant drama of 'The Father's Tragedy' were the work of the younger writer while still a girl.'[4] They had financial independence.
They were Aestheticists, strongly influenced by the thoughts of Walter Pater. They developed a large circle of literary friends and contacts; in particular painters and life partners Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon, near whom they settled in Richmond, London. Robert Browning was a close friend of theirs—if also the source of their leaked identity—as well as Rudyard Kipling. They also knew and admired Oscar Wilde, whose death they bitterly mourned. While they were always well connected, the early critical success was not sustained (this is often attributed to the joint identity of Field becoming known). They knew many of the aesthetic movement of the 1890s, including Walter Pater, Vernon Lee, J. A. Symonds and also Bernard Berenson. William Rothenstein was a friend. In 1899 the death of Edith's father enabled them to buy their own house as evidence of their "close marriage", although Edith saw her father's death as retribution for their lifestyle. Edith later led the way in establishing the couple as active Catholics.[5]
Katherine Harris Bradley & Edith Emma CooperThey wrote a number of passionate love poems to each other, and their name Michael Field was their way of declaring their inseparable oneness. Friends referred to them as the Fields, the Michaels, or the Michael Fields. They had a range of pet names for each other. They also were passionately devoted to their pets, particularly Whym Chow, for whom they wrote a book of elegiac poems entitled Whym Chow: Flame of Love. Their joint journal starts with an account of Bradley's passion for Alfred Gérente, an artist in stained glass and brother of Henri Gérente, who was of an English background but worked mostly in France. It goes on to document Michael Field as a figure, amongst 'his' literary counterparts, and their lives together. When Whym Chow died in 1906, the emotional pattern of the relationship was disturbed; both women became Roman Catholic converts in 1907. Their religious inclinations are reflected in their later works, where their earlier writing is influenced by classical and Renaissance culture, in its pagan aspects particularly, Sappho as understood by the late Victorians, and perhaps Walter Savage Landor.
Katherine had found that she had breast cancer in June 1913 and only told her confessor, Vincent McNabb; she had never told Edith, who had been diagnosed with cancer in 1911. Edith died 13 December 1913 at their home, The Paragon, Richmond.[6][7] Katherine died 26 September 1914, having moved to a cottage near McNabb at Hawkesyard Priory, Rugeley.[8][9] They are buried together in the cemetery of St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church in Mortlake.[10]
