[1] The second son of Charles Bernard of Eden Estate, Jamaica, and his wife Margaret, daughter of John Baker of Waresley House, Worcestershire, he was born at Clifton, Bristol on 11 November 1815; Mountague Bernard was his brother.
In 1839 he was awarded the chancellor's prize for an English essay on The Classical Taste and Character compared with the Romantic.
[1] In 1864 Bernard was appointed by Charles Simeon's trustees to the rectory of Walcot, Bath, a reflection of his strong evangelical sympathies.
He was a frequent speaker at the Islington clerical meeting, He resigned Walcot in 1886, and went to live at Wimborne.
[1] In 1864 Bernard delivered Bampton lectures on The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament (published, with a fifth edition in 1900).