There were a lot of English ports other than Liverpool. London being much closer to Bedford than Liverpool. But as we can't find him in any census after 1871 you can't say he "spent most of his life in England". All we know is that he spent the first seven years of his life in the UK, probably at Bedford. We don't know where he was in the world after 1871 - he could equally have emigrated and have been a seaman out of, say, New York. Or he could have been a seaman (sailor) in the Royal Navy, rather than a merchant seaman.
What was the date of the record that said he was a seaman?
