Henry Arthur Blake

Sir Henry Arthur Blake
GCMG DL JP FRGS
Sir Henry Arthur Blake GCMG DL JP FRGS
46th Governor of The Bahamas
	In office; 4 January 1884 – 1887
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	Sir Charles Cameron Lees
Succeeded by	Sir Ambrose Shea
55th Governor of Newfoundland
	In office; 1887 – December 1888
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	Sir G W Des Voeux
Succeeded by	Sir John T N O'Brien
65th Governor of Jamaica
	In office; 23 December 1888 – 1898
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	William Clive Justice (Ag)
Succeeded by	Henry Jardine Hallowes (Ag)
12th Governor of Hong Kong
	In office; 25 November 1898 – 21 November 1903
Monarchs	Victoria; Edward VII
Lieutenant Governor	Sir Wilsone Black; Sir William Gascoigne
Colonial Secretary	Sir Stewart Lockhart; Sir Francis Henry May
Preceded by	Sir William Robinson
Succeeded by	Sir Matthew Nathan
19th Governor of British Ceylon
	In office; 3 December 1903 – 11 July 1907
Monarch	Edward VII
Preceded by	Sir Everard im Thurn (Ag)
Succeeded by	Hugh Clifford (Ag)
Personal details
Born	8 January 1840; Limerick, Ireland
Died	13 February 1918 (aged 78); Myrtle Grove, Youghal, County Cork, Ireland
Resting place	Myrtle Grove, Youghal, County Cork, Ireland
Spouses	; Jeannie Irwin (m. 1862; died 1866) ; Edith Bernal Osborne, Lady Blake (m. 1874)
Children	3
Profession	Constable, magistrate, colonial administrator
Chinese name
Chinese	卜力
Jyutping
Transcriptions
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutping	buk1 lik6

Sir Henry Arthur Blake GCMG DL JP FRGS^[1] (Chinese: 卜力; Sidney Lau: Buk¹ Lik⁶; 8 January 1840 – 23 February 1918) was a British colonial administrator and Governor of Hong Kong from 1898 to 1903.

Early life, family and career

Blake was born in Limerick, Ireland. He was the son of Peter Blake of Corbally Castle (c. 1805 – bur. St. Ann's, Dublin, 19 November 1850), a Galway-born county Inspector of the Irish Constabulary, and wife (m. Mobarnan, County Tipperary) Jane Lane (Lanespark, County Tipperary, 5 March 1819 – ?), daughter of John Lane of Lanespark, County Tipperary, and paternal grandson of Peter Blake of Corbally Castle, County Galway (? – 1842, bur. Peter’s Well, County Galway) and wife (m. 14 May 1800) Mary Browne, daughter of The Hon. John Browne and wife Mary Cocks and paternal granddaughter of John Browne, 1st Earl of Altamont, and wife Anne Gore. He was included among the descendants the Blakes of Corbally Castle, Kilmoylan, County Galway, the descendants of Peter Blake (? – 1712), who was granted the lands of Corbally, Kilmoylan, County Galway, on 20 December 1697, and wife Magdeline Martin, the Blakes. Peter Blake was a son of Sir Richard Blake and wife Gyles Kirwan.^[2]

Blake started out as a clerk in the Bank of Ireland but lasted only 18 months before resigning and commencing a cadetship in the Irish Constabulary in 1857. He became a special inspector two years later. In 1876, he was appointed Resident Magistrate to Tuam, an especially disturbed district in the west of Ireland, where he was noted as judicious and active. In 1882, he was promoted to Special Resident Magistrate.^[3]

Early colonial services

In 1884, Blake was made Governor of Bahamas, a position he held until 1887. He was appointed to Queensland in 1886 but resigned without entering the administration, following an imbroglio between Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Knutsford, and the premier of Queensland, Sir Thomas M'Ilwraith, on the appointment.^[4] In 1887, he moved to Newfoundland, where he was governor until the end of 1888, being knighted on 7 November that year.^[5] In 1889 he became the Captain-General and Governor of Jamaica. His term was extended in 1894 and 1896, at the request of Legislature and public bodies of the island, until 1897.

Governor of Hong Kong

On 25 November 1898, Blake was appointed Governor of Hong Kong, a position he held until November 1903.^[3] Five months before he arrived in Hong Kong, the British government negotiated an agreement with the Qing government which leased the New Territories to British Hong Kong for 99 years. During his tenure, Blake sent in colonial administrators to the New Territories to assert control over the local punti clans. The clans resisted the British takeover of the New Territories, resulting in the outbreak of the Six-Day War; a largely Indian force under the command of British Army officer William Gascoigne managed to defeat the punti clans, with Blake adopting an amiable co-operation policy to prevent further trouble and allowed them to retain traditional laws and customs in regards to land inheritance, land usage and marriage.^[6]

Blake left Hong Kong immediately after he attended the laying of the foundation stone of the Supreme Court building (Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1985 to 2011) on 12 November 1903.^[7]

Post-Hong Kong

Blake was appointed Governor of Ceylon at the end of his tenure in Hong Kong in 1903, and he served in that capacity until 1907. This was his last post in the Colonial Service. A freshly retired Blake impressed George Morrison with his bitterness at not landing a Privy Council sinecure in gratitude for his 41 years' public service.^[8]^: 184

The Blakes retired to Myrtle Grove in Youghal, County Cork, where they both died and were buried.^[9]

Personal life

Blake married twice: Jeannie Irwin in 1862 (she died in 1866), and Edith Bernal Osborne in Ireland, on 7 February 1874 (she was the daughter of MP Ralph Bernal Osborne). He had two sons, and one daughter Olive, who married John Bernard Arbuthnot. During his period as Governor of The Bahamas, a watercolour of his three children, Children Under a Palm, was painted by Winslow Homer. The painting was subsequently featured on the BBC TV programme, Fake or Fortune?^[10]

Honours and arms

Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG), 1887
Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG), 1888
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG), 1897
Knight of Justice of Order of St. John of Jerusalem
Fellow of Royal Geographical Society (FRGS)
JP
DL
Fellow of Royal Colonial Institute (FRCI)
Fellow of Institute of Directors (FIoD)
Honorary Colonel of Ceylon Mounted Rifles
District Grand Master Ceylon Freemasons
Member, Council Royal Dublin Society
Honorary Member, Royal Zoological Society, London

Coat of arms of Henry Arthur Blake
Notes Confirmed 6 February 1896 by Arthur Edward Vicars, Ulster King of Arms.^[11] Crest On a wreath of the colours a cat-a-mountain passant guardant Proper charged with a crescent as in the arms. Escutcheon Quarterly 1st & 4th Argent a fret Gules in chief a crescent of the last a crescent for difference (Blake) 2nd & 3rd Sable three lions passant between four bendlets Argent in chief a fleur de lys of the last for difference (Browne). Motto Virtus Sola Nobilitat

Legacy

The community of Blaketown in Canada was named in his honour when he was the governor of Newfoundland. Blake Garden, Blake Pier (卜公碼頭) and Blake Block (now within the People's Liberation Army Hong Kong Headquarters) are named after him.

The Bauhinia blakeana, discovered in Hong Kong around 1880, was named after him (Blake shared his wife's interest in botany). It became an emblem of Hong Kong in 1965 and has been the official emblem from 1 July 1997. It appears on the flag of Hong Kong and its currency.^[3]

The John Crow Mountains in Jamaica were renamed the Blake Mountains in 1890 but the name did not stick.^[12]

Publications

McGrath, Terence, pseud. [i.e. Sir Henry Arthur Blake.] 1880, Pictures from Ireland. Kegan Paul & Co.: London, 1880. Available from archive.org
"Ceylon" . The Empire and the century. London: John Murray. 1905. pp. 707–15.

References

^ Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 1, page 120.
^ Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, editor, Burke's Irish Family Records (London, U.K.: Burkes Peerage Ltd, 1976), Blake, page 120.
^ ^a ^b ^c Airlie, Shiona M (2012). Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography. Hong Kong University Press. p. 32. ISBN 9789888083664.
^ Arthur Patchett Martin (1889). "The Moral of Queensland Imbroglio". Australia and the Empire: 233–252. Wikidata Q107340736.
^ Shaw, William Arthur (1971). The Knights of England: A Complete Record from the Earliest Time to the Present Day of the Knights of All the Orders of Chivalry in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of Knights Bachelors. Incorporating a Complete List of Knights Bachelors Dubbed in Ireland, Volume 1. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 373. ISBN 9780806304434. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
^ Hase, Patrick H. (2008). The Six-Day War of 1899: Hong Kong in the Age of Imperialism. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. p. 111. ISBN 9789622098992.
^ "The Old Supreme Court Building – Brief History". Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
^ Pearl, Cyril (1967). Morrison of Peking. Sydney,Australia: Angus & Robertson.
^ Independent article by Patrick Cockburn
^ "Homer". Fake or Fortune?. Episode 2. 26 June 2011. BBC. Retrieved 4 August 2011.
^ "Grants and Confirmations of Arms, Vol. H". National Library of Ireland. 11 February 1880. p. 358. Retrieved 19 August 2022.
^ Higman, B W; Hudson (2009). Jamaican Place Names. B J (1st ed.). Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-976-640-217-4.

Sources

Dictionary of Irish Biography, pp. 583–84, Cambridge, 2010.
Biography at Government House The Governorship of Newfoundland and Labrador

External links

Government offices
Preceded by Sir Charles Cameron Lees	Governor of the Bahamas 1884–1887	Succeeded by Ambrose Shea
Preceded by Sir William Des Vœux	Colonial Governor of Newfoundland 1887–1889	Succeeded by Sir John Terence Nicholls O'Brien
Preceded by Sir Henry Wylie Norman	Governor of Jamaica 1889–1898	Succeeded by Augustus William Lawson Hemming
Preceded by Major-General Wilsone Black, Acting Administrator	Governor of Hong Kong 1898–1903	Succeeded by Sir Francis Henry May, Acting Administrator
Preceded by Sir Everard im Thurn acting governor	Governor of Ceylon 1903–1907	Succeeded by Hugh Clifford acting governor