English radical reformer who was the author of several widely popular poems (principally in the Lancashire dialect) showing sympathy with the condition of the working class. He became a working weaver and earned great respect in northern radical circles as a reformer.

Bamford formed a Hampden Club in Middleton in 1817 and met William Cobbett, Henry Hunt, William Benbow, and Sir Francis Burdett. In 1819 he was arrested as a result of attending and speaking at the Manchester meeting known as Peterloo and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Bamford became a journalist in London in about 1826. He continued to press for the reform of working-class conditions, on which his Passages in the Life of a Radical (1840–44) and Early Days (1849) are illuminating. On his death he was accorded a public funeral that was attended by thousands.