BLOMEFIELD, FRANCIS (1705-1752), English topographer of the county of Norfolk, was born at Fersfield, Norfolk, on the 23rd of July 1705. On leaving Cambridge in 1727 he was ordained, becoming in 1729 rector of Hargham, Norfolk, and immediately afterwards rector of Fersfield, his father’s family living. In 1733 he mooted the idea of a history of Norfolk, for which he had begun collecting material at the age of fifteen, and shortly afterwards, while collecting further information for his book, discovered some of the famous Paston Letters. By 1736 he was ready to put some of the results of his researches into type. At the end of 1739 the first volume of the History of Norfolk was completed. It was printed at the author’s own press, bought specially for the purpose. The second volume was ready in 1745. There is little doubt that in compiling his book Blomefield had frequent recourse to the existing historical collections of Le Neve, Kirkpatrick and Tanner, his own work being to a large extent one of expansion and addition. To Le Neve in particular a large share of the credit is due. When half-way through his third volume, Blomefield, who had come up to London in connexion with a special piece of research, caught smallpox, of which he died on the 16th of January 1752. The remainder of his work was published posthumously, and the whole eleven volumes were republished in London between 1805 and 1810.
BLOMFIELD, SIR ARTHUR WILLIAM (1829-1899), English architect, son of Bishop C.J. Blomfield, was born on the 6th of March 1829, and educated at Rugby and Trinity, Cambridge. He was then articled as an architect to P.C. Hardwick, and subsequently obtained a large practice on his own account. He became president of the Architectural Association in 1861, and a fellow (1867) and vice-president (1886) of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1887 he became architect to the Bank of England, and designed the law courts branch in Fleet Street, and he was associated with A.E. Street in the building of the law courts. In 1889 he was knighted. He died on the 30th of October 1899. He was twice married, and brought up two sons, Charles J. Blomfield and Arthur Conran Blomfield, to his own profession, of which they became distinguished representatives. Among the numerous churches which Sir Arthur Blomfield designed, his work at St Saviour’s, Southwark, is a notable example of his use of revived Gothic, and he was highly regarded as a restorer.
BLOMFIELD, CHARLES JAMES (1786-1857), English divine, was born on the 29th of May 1786 at Bury St Edmunds. He was educated at the local grammar school and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained the Browne medals for Latin and Greek odes, and carried off the Craven scholarship. In 1808 he graduated as third wrangler and first medallist, and in the following year was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College. The first-fruits of his scholarship was an edition of the Prometheus of Aeschylus in 1810; this was followed by editions of the Septem contra Thebas, Persae, Choephorae, and Agamemnon, of Callimachus, and of the fragments of Sappho, Sophron and Alcaeus. Blomfield, however, soon ceased to devote himself entirely to scholarship. He had been ordained in 1810, and held in quick succession the livings of Chesterford, Quarrington, Dunton, Great and Little Chesterford, and Tuddenham. In 1817 he was appointed private chaplain to Wm. Howley, bishop of London. In 1819 he was nominated to the rich living of St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, and in 1822 he became archdeacon of Colchester. Two years later he was raised to the bishopric of Chester where he carried through many much-needed reforms. In 1828 he was translated to the bishopric of London, which he held for twenty-eight years. During this period his energy and zeal did much to extend the influence of the church. He was one of the best debaters in the House of Lords, took a leading position in the action for church reform which culminated in the ecclesiastical commission, and did much for the extension of the colonial episcopate; and his genial and kindly nature made him an invaluable mediator in the controversies arising out of the tractarian movement. His health at last gave way, and in 1856 he was permitted to resign his bishopric, retaining Fulham Palace as his residence, with a pension of £6000 per annum. He died on the 5th of August 1857. His published works, exclusive of those above mentioned, consist of charges, sermons, lectures and pamphlets, and of a Manual of Private and Family Prayers. He was a frequent contributor to the quarterly reviews, chiefly on classical subjects.
See Memoirs of Charles James Blomfield, D.D., Bishop of London, with Selections from his Correspondence, edited by his son, Alfred Blomfield (1863); G.E. Biber, Bishop Blomfield and his Times (1857).
BLOMFIELD, EDWARD VALENTINE (1788-1816), English classical scholar, brother of Bishop C.J. Blomfield, was born at Bury St Edmunds on the 14th of February 1788. Going to Caius College, Cambridge, he was thirteenth wrangler in 1811, obtained several of the classical prizes of the university, and became a fellow and lecturer at Emmanuel College. In 1813 he travelled in Germany and made the acquaintance of some of the great scholars of Germany. On his return, he published in the Museum Criticum (No. ii.) an interesting paper on “The Present State of Classical Literature in Germany.” Blomfield is chiefly known by his translation of Matthiae’s Greek Grammar (1819), which was prepared for the press by his brother. He died on the 9th of October 1816, his early death depriving Cambridge of one who seemed destined to take a high place amongst her most brilliant classical scholars.
See “Memoir of Edward Valentine Blomfield,” by Bishop Monk, in Museum Criticum, No. vii.