Charles James Blomfield


Charles James Blomfield was a British divine and classicist, and a Church of England bishop for 32 years.

Early life and education

Charles James Blomfield was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, the eldest son of Charles Blomfield, a schoolmaster, JP and chief alderman of Bury St Edmunds, and his wife, Hester, daughter of Edward Pawsey, a Bury grocer. He was therefore unusual in becoming a Bishop of London not from an ecclesiastical, aristocratic or landowning background. His brother was Edward Valentine Blomfield, a classical scholar.
He was educated at the grammar school at Bury St Edmunds, declining a scholarship to Eton College after a brief stay there.
Blomfield matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1804. At Cambridge, he was tutored by John Hudson, mathematician and clergyman. Blomfield won the Browne medals for Latin and Greek odes, and the Craven scholarship. He graduated B.A. in 1808, M.A. in 1811, B.D. in 1818, D.D. in 1820.

Career

Blomfield was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College in 1809. 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, Choephori, and Agamemnon, of Callimachus, and of the fragments of Sappho, Sophron and Alcaeus.
Blomfield, however, soon ceased to devote himself entirely to scholarship. Ordained deacon in March 1810 and priest in June 1810, he held a curacy at Chesterford, then the following livings:
Whilst at Dunton he educated George Spencer, and they corresponded for several years after. In 1817 he was appointed private chaplain to William Howley, Bishop of London. In 1819 he was nominated to the rich living of St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, and in 1822 he became Archdeacon of Colchester. Two years later he was raised to the bishopric as Bishop of Chester where he carried through many much-needed reforms.
In 1828, he was appointed a Privy Counsellor and translated becoming Bishop of London, a post which he held for twenty-eight years making him the third longest-serving post reformation incumbent. He was also the youngest known Bishop of London – his five youngest children were born in Fulham Palace – and 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. In 1840 he officiated at the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Between 1833 and 1841 he consecrated four of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries of London. He also made a number of changes at Fulham Palace, including planting a great number of trees which remain today.
[Image:CharlesJamesBlomfieldMonument01.jpg|thumb|Funerary monument, All Saints, Fulham, London.]

Later life

In 1856 he was permitted to resign his bishopric due to ill health, retaining Fulham Palace as his residence, with a pension of £6,000 per annum.
Blomfield is buried in the churchyard of All Saints Church, Fulham, London and a memorial to him, by George Richmond, can be seen at Saint Paul's Cathedral along the south wall of the ambulatory. His grave has long-since had the surrounding railings removed. Blomfield Road in Maida Vale is named after him.

Published works

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.

Personal life

Blomfield married Anna Maria Heath on 6 November 1810 at Hemblington, Norfolk and they had six children:
  • Anna Maria Blomfield
  • Charles James Blomfield
  • Maria Blomfield
  • Charles William Blomfield
  • Edward Thomas Blomfield
  • Charles James Blomfield
Anna Maria died on 16 February 1818 aged 33 at Hildersham, Cambridgeshire.
Blomfield then married Dorothy on 17 December 1819 at St George, Hanover Square, London, and they had eleven children:
Dorothy also had one son from her first marriage, Thomas Fassett Kent, barrister.
The Blomfield household was larger than any other family of a Bishop of London, with eleven surviving children living in the palace. He had 49 grandchildren and another six step-grandchildren, including the army officer Major-General Charles James Blomfield, the architect Sir Reginald Blomfield, the poet and hymn writer Dorothy Gurney, the caricaturist Frederick Thomas Dalton and the palaeontologist, geologist and malacologist Francis Arthur Bather. A great grandchild was the civil servant Sir Thomas Wolseley Haig.