[3] He was educated at Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School, before gaining admission to the London Hospital Medical College,[2][4] where his father was professor of bacteriology.

[2] Bedson's career in virology began in 1958 when he was appointed the John W. Garrett research fellow at the University of Liverpool's department of bacteriology, where he would spend the next six years.

[8][9] She had been admitted to an infectious diseases ward at the East Birmingham Hospital with an initial diagnosis of flu and drug eruption.

In Bedson's Munk's Roll biography published by the Royal College of Physicians, virologist Peter Wildy and Sir Gordon Wolstenholme wrote:[2]Journalists launched a relentless effort to fix the blame on him and his staff for a breach of technique, and union officials stirred up public fears by confusing the issues with those then arising from genetic manipulation.

[15] In 1961, Bedson married Ann Patricia (née Ducker; died 31 January 2019, aged 81), a Yorkshire staff nurse working in Liverpool.

[3] Bedson's hobbies included cricket, and dry fly fishing, an activity learnt from his childhood days with his father.