Also the Association worked towards assuming the administration of the parks and providing trained supervisors who were to direct play and, through this, to instil the values of courage, honesty and consideration in the children.

[1] Bedford, who is also remembered as the lifelong companion of Dr Lilian Violet Cooper, worked toward alleviating the stress and poverty afflicting urban dwellers.

On her many study tours with Cooper, Bedford researched successful methods and programmes on the provision of family welfare in America and Europe and she is known to have attended lectures at the University of California, Berkeley on public recreation parks in about 1911, just two years before the Playground Association was established.

Ms Bedford was associated with many of the early efforts in Brisbane to establish welfare; she was instrumental in increasing the scope of the Brisbane Children's Hospital in 1905, she was involved with the establishment of the Queensland branch of the National Council of Women also in 1905; she and Cooper were delegates at the International Council of Women in Stockholm in 1912.

[1] Bedford died on 22 December 1955, and is buried next to her lifelong companion, Lilian Violet Cooper at Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

[1] In 2020 the State Library of Queensland produced their 'Dangerous Women' podcast series which features and episode on Dr Lilian Cooper and Josephine Bedford and their life achievements.