Edward Lavender Moulton

Mayor of Bedford 1903 & 1908

Edward Lavender Moulton was born into a farming family at Chatteris, Cambridgeshire. He moved to Bedford to take over an ironmongery business at 35 High Street (until 1835 the site of the Barley Mow public house) in partnership with Henry Pain. The partnership was dissolved a short time later and Edward Moulton continued to run the business until 1887 when it was taken over by Henry Bacchus.

After his retirement he became a Town Councillor from 1887 to 1888. He then spend a few years travelling round the world, though in later years he said he had never seen a place more desirable to live in than Bedford! In 1890 he married Anna Grimmer at Norwich. After his return to Bedford he again became a Town Councillor and was elected as an Alderman of the Borough in 1898, an office he held until 1910. He served as Mayor in 1903 and 1908, was a governor of the Harpur Trust, the second Chairman of the Bedford Education Committee, and Chairman of the Estates Committee of the Corporation. He became a Justice of the Peace for the Borough in 1906. He was described as “a ready and forcible speaker, tenacious in his views, firm and quick-witted as a chairman, and loyal to the side or section with which he associated himself”. He served as President of the Liberal Club, and was a churchwarden at St. Cuthbert’s.

In 1913 he suffered a stroke, from which he recovered sufficiently to go out in a bath chair with a nurse in attendance, and to walk unaided indoors, although in his later months he was largely housebound. He died aged 77 on 12th February 1914, at his home at Winthorpe, 3 The Embankment, Bedford.

References for material held by Bedfordshire Archives

• AU34/21/7/18 - small greetings card from Mr and Mrs E L Moulton BMB4/1/18/69 - Notebook. Inventory and valuation for probate purposes of household furniture etc., at 3 The Embankment, Bedford, in the estate of E L Moulton
• BorBG10/5/64 - address by George Haynes, Edward L. Moulton and Thomas Spencer to the Burgesses of the Western Ward offering themselves as candidates, with a policy of securing the good of all classes and to help in every way possible to promote the Health and Prosperity of the Borough. Printed by R. Hill & Company, 1888
• X380/51/2 - Insurance Policy (Sun Fire Office) on dwelling house, partly used as ironmonger shop in High Street
• X380/52 - Mortgage by E L Moulton to George Higgins, 1876
• X380/54 - Letter from Charles Wells, Horne Lane Brewery, Bedford, to E L Moulton esquire, 3 The Embankment, thanking him for permission to put two bolts through his wall at the Castle Lane entrance of Well's property to hold gates back, and agreeing to remove if desired, 1894
• X857/2/11 - Abstract of Title of the Scottish Provident Institution to "Winthorpe", 3 The Embankment, Bedford [draft], 1974