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Horatio Bland
Born
Newfoundland, Canada
Baptised(1804-01-30)30 January 1804
Died31 March 1876(1876-03-31) (aged 73–74)
Burghfield, Berkshire
Occupation(s)Merchant and collector

Horatio Bland (1802 – (1876-03-31)31 March 1876) was a merchant and collector of artefacts from around the world. He set up a private museum in Berkshire and his collection founded Reading Museum in 1882.[1][2]

Childhood

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Bland was born in about 1802 at Bonavista, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Canada.[3][4] His parents were John (1760-1826) and Sarah Bland (1726-1836).[4] John Bland was born in Devon and had arrived in Newfoundland and married Sarah Bland by 1789.[5] He was probably a merchant’s agent, first becoming a magistrate and in 1809 he was appointed High Sheriff of Newfoundland.[5] He took a special interest in the welfare of the indigenous people, the Beothuk, particularly condemning fisherman and furriers for their treatment and alienation of the Beothuks.[5]

Business life

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Bland left Newfoundland in about 1823, spending time in New York and Liverpool.[1][6] By 1838 he was in South America where he went into business with William Joseph Myers, a Liverpool merchant.[1] They set up a merchant house at the port of Valparaiso in Chile, trading as Myers, Bland and Company.[1] In the 1830s Bland was speculating on a new agricultural fertilizer, guano, the accumulated droppings of sea birds over many centuries.[1] In July 1839 through the Myers, Bland and Company he sent thirty bags of guano to Liverpool from Valparaiso on board the ship Heroine.[7]

Personal life

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In 1838 in Valparasio, Chile, Bland had a son Horatio Bland Guerra.[1] By the 1840s a wealthy Bland moved to England,[3] where on 3 August 1847 he married Emily Alicia Cherry (1826–1868),[8][1] the oldest daughter of the Rector of Burghfield Rev Henry Curtis Cherry[9] and his first wife Anne Alicia Cameron. The Bland's lived in a large Georgian house called Culverlands at Burghfield Hill.[1] Bland also owned adjoining land at Burghfield Common and in 1855 he bought Hartley Grange at Hartley Witney, Hampshire.[10]

Bland's wife Emily Bland died on a trip to Jerusalem in March 1868[11] where she is buried in the Protestant Cemetery.[1] Bland founded Mrs Bland’s School[12] at Burghfield Common in memory of his wife.[13] The school bell was a large Japanese temple bell dating to 1746[12] that Bland had collected on his travels. In 1953 it was given to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.[14]

Family scandal

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Family scandal in the courts made the newspapers in 1850s.[15] Emily Bland’s father, Rev Henry Cherry[9] attempted kidnapping his second wife Emily Mary Sutherland.[16] She wanted to leave the marriage and applied to the court of Queen's bench to protect her, while Cherry applied in 1858 a suit for restitution of conjugal rights.[15][1]

New Home and Museum

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In 1861 Bland commissioned the architect Walter Scott[17] of Liverpool to design a new red and blue brick gabled house with a slate roof on his land at Burghfield Common called Hillfields.[17] Hillfields was constructed at a cost of £2961.[17] Today it is the headquarters for Guide Dogs for the Blind.[17] He had a "detached Brick and Slated Building erected for a Museum" according to the 1892 Hillfields house sale catalogue.[18]

In 1874 Bland built a new museum in Burghfield for his growing museum collection, replacing the smaller museum building at Hillfields.[19] The eclectic collection and museum was described by Dr Joseph Stevens, the first curator of Reading Museum. It contained a stuffed lion, kangaroo and platypus, marine shells from Australia, Papua and Philippines, pottery from ancient Egypt, Greece and Peru, and weapons and implements from Africa and the Pacific.[19]

Legacy

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Bland died on 31 March 1876, aged 73,[20] and was buried at St Mary’s churchyard, Burghfield.[1] He gave Hillfields house to his nephew Thomas Bland Garland, another property to nephew Marcus Horatio Bland[21] and the residue of his estate to his son Horatio Bland Guerra.[1][20][22] Bland Garland offered the Bland Collection to Reading Corporation in 1877.[23] New museum galleries were built at Reading Town Hall[23] and the collection was permanently transferred to Reading Museum in September 1882.[24][19]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Bland, Horatio (1802?–1876), merchant and collector". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/107138. ISBN 9780198614111. Retrieved 5 March 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ "Horatio Bland | Reading Connections Project". Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  3. ^ a b "England and Wales Census, 1851". The National Archives of the UK. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Newfoundland Vital Statistics, 1753-1893". FamilySearch. Birth, Bonavista, Trinity North, Newfoundland, Canada, Provincial Archives, St. John's. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  5. ^ a b c "Biography – BLAND, JOHN – Volume VI (1821-1835) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography". www.biographi.ca. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  6. ^ "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891". National Archives and Records Administration. 20 February 2021. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  7. ^ Craig, R, ed. (2003). "The African Guano Trade". British Tramp Shipping, 1750–1914. Liverpool University Press. pp. 85–120. ISBN 978-1-786-94911-0.
  8. ^ "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005". findmypast. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  9. ^ a b "Cherry, Henry Curtis (antiquarian)". Collections - Special Collections. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  10. ^ Post Office Directory for Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorsetshire 1855. Kelly and Co. 1855.
  11. ^ "The Atlas". 9 April 1868. p. 14.
  12. ^ a b "Mrs Bland's Infant and Nursery School". Mrs Bland's Infant and Nursery School. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  13. ^ "Site of original Mrs Bland's Infant School, Burghfield Common". heritagegateway.org.uk. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  14. ^ "Temple Bell". Ashmolean Museum online collections. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  15. ^ a b "Reading Mercury". 18 December 1858.
  16. ^ "England Marriages, 1538–1973". Familysearch. 13 March 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  17. ^ a b c d ""Hillfields," Hermit's Hill, Burghfield, near Reading, Berkshire - Building | Architects of Greater Manchester". manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  18. ^ "Sale catalogue of the Hillfields Estate, Burghfield". Berkshire Record Office Collections. 1892. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  19. ^ a b c "Reading Observer". 3 June 1882.
  20. ^ a b "England and Wales, National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1957". FamilySearch. 30 August 2018. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  21. ^ "Company Evolution | The Bland Group". www.blandgroup.com. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  22. ^ "Wills and Bequests". Illustrated London News. 13 May 1876. pp. 24–25.
  23. ^ a b "Reading Mercury". 8 March 1879. p. 6.
  24. ^ "Opening of New Public Buildings". Reading Mercury. 3 June 1882.
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