Born at Carlton Colville and educated at North Walsham Grammar School. He was for many years on the surveying staff of Messers Farebrother, Ellis and Co. where he was always known as 'Mr Bugs', and from which he retired in 1939.
Bedwell began by collecting Lepidoptera, but A.M. Massee notes that 'at the age of 20 he changed to the Coleoptera, which he collected assiduously until his death. His magnificent collection of beautifully set beetles is very complete, and such difficult genera as Atheta, Colon, Epuraea, and Meligethes often so poorly represented in collections - are very complete. Bedwell’s favourite group was the Sternoxia, ‘of which the 'clicks' make a very impressive series.’ He also collected the Hemiptera – Heteroptera and succeeded in taking all but thirty of the 500 recorded British species. A species of Microphysidae, Myrmedobia bedwelli, which he discovered at the Lizard in 1932 was named after him by W.E. China.
Bedwell's first publication on the Coleoptera 'Cryptocephalus exiguus: an addition to the Suffolk fauna’ appeared in Ent.mon.Mag., 35, 1899, 45-46, and was followed by many others. An important early publication was his list of the Coleoptera of Oulton Broad and district (Entomologist's Rec.J.Var., 11, 1899, 298-300, 335-338). The insects were taken in a fifteen month period ending in April 1899. In naming them he was much helped by Claude Morley.
Bedwell bequeathed his collection to the Castle Museum, Norwich where it is maintained separately (number 115.1945). The Accession register states that the collection includes ‘c.26,000 specimens with full data’, of which ‘16,558 have been remounted recently and arranged in cabinets’. The rest are in store boxes. Included with the collection are Newberry and Sharp's Exchange List, 1915, marked up with complete and in-complete sets and single specimens; three volumes listing localities visited between 1898 and 1942; six volumes listing captures between 1896 and 1932 (these include the names of companions eg. Tottenham, Sharp, Nicholson, etc. and several photographs); and an envelope containing A catalogue of the Tactiyporinae in E.C.Bedwell's Collection by Ismay, and correspondence about the collection going to Norwich. A note indicates that Bedwell arranged the collection according to A. Winkler, Catalogus Coleop., Vienna 1924-5.
Other specimens collected by Bedwell are in the Waterhouse Collection in the RSM, and in the HDO. Letters from Bedwell concerning B.S.Williams' collection, which he was instrumental in obtaining for the Liverpool Museum, are in that Museum. Two are interesting: Bedwell to Dr Allan, 3 December 1941 ‘I took on the disposal of the libraries of E.A. Buckley, Easbury[?], and Stott as they were personal friends and I still have some in hand ... they are in store as I been bombed out of my house'. And Bedwell to Harry Britten, 12 September 1941: 'Please excuse this short letter but my hands are so bad this morning I can hardly hold the pen...’. Other specimens collected by Bedwell are in the RHS (over 100 specimens mainly Carabidae Information from Andy Salisbury). Letters from Bedwell concerning B.S. Williams' collection, which he was instrumental in obtaining for the Liverpool Museum, are in that Museum.
Apart from the account by Massee already mentioned there are others in Ent.mon.Mag., 81, 1945, p.143 (by P. Harwood); Proc.R.ent.Soc.Lond., 1O(C), 1945-6, p. 53 (by G.Carpenter), and Transactions Suffolk Naturalists Society., 5, 1945, xcvii-xcviii. There are also many references to him in Morley(1899).
FRES 1899, Vice-President 1922, Council 1917-19, 1922-24 and 1929-31, and in 1940 was made a Special Life Fellow in recognition of his services to the Society as Surveyor. (MD 10/01, 1/07)