Charles James Blomfield was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, the eldest son (and one of ten children) of Charles Blomfield (1763–1831), a schoolmaster (as was Charles James's grandfather, James Blomfield), JP and chief alderman of Bury St Edmunds, and his wife, Hester (1765–1844), 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.
Blomfield, however, soon ceased to devote himself entirely to scholarship. Ordained deacon in March 1810 and priest in June 1810,[4] he held a curacy at Chesterford, then the following livings:[4][7]
In 1828, he was appointed a Privy Counsellor[4] 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 (members of the Upper House of the Canterbury Convocation confessed to trimming their quill pens before his arrival!), 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.[6] 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.[5]
Funerary monument, All Saints, Fulham, London.
Later life
Blomfield's memorial in St Paul's Cathedral
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.[6]
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.[6]
Personal life
Blomfield married Anna Maria Heath on 6 November 1810 at Hemblington, Norfolk and they had six children:
Anna Maria Blomfield (1811–1812)
Charles James Blomfield (1813–1813)
Maria Blomfield (1814–1884)
Charles William Blomfield (1815–1815)
Edward Thomas Blomfield (1816–1822)
Charles James Blomfield (1818–1818)
Anna Maria died on 16 February 1818 aged 33 at Hildersham, Cambridgeshire.
Blomfield then married Dorothy (née Cox, widow of Thomas Kent of Hildersham, Cambridgeshire) on 17 December 1819 at St George, Hanover Square, London, and they had eleven children:
Charles James Blomfield (1820–1822)
Mary Frances Blomfield (1821–1869)
Frederick George "Fred" Blomfield (1823–1879), rector
Dorothy also had one son from her first marriage, Thomas Fassett Kent (1817–1871), barrister (he was father of the poet Armine Thomas Kent).
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 (1855−1928), the architect Sir Reginald Blomfield (1856–1942), the poet and hymn writer Dorothy Gurney (née Blomfield) (1858–1932) and the palaeontologist, geologist and malacologist Francis Arthur Bather (1863–1934). A great grandchild was the civil servant Sir Thomas Wolseley Haig.
.jpg)
