Horatio Bland

Bland was born in about 1802 at Bonavista, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Canada.{{Cite web|title=England and Wales Census, 1851|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SG85-8Y3|access-date=2021-03-05|publisher=The National Archives of the UK}}{{Cite web|title=Newfoundland Vital Statistics, 1753-1893|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK9T-RCMY|access-date=2021-03-05|website=FamilySearch|publisher=Birth, Bonavista, Trinity North, Newfoundland, Canada, Provincial Archives, St. John's.}} His parents were John (1760-1826) and Sarah Bland (1726-1836). John Bland was born in Devon and had arrived in Newfoundland and married Sarah Bland by 1789.{{Cite web|title=Biography – BLAND, JOHN – Volume VI (1821-1835) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography|url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bland_john_1825_6E.html|access-date=2021-03-05|website=www.biographi.ca}} He was probably a merchant’s agent, first becoming a magistrate and in 1809 he was appointed High Sheriff of Newfoundland. 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.

Bland left Newfoundland in about 1823, spending time in New York and Liverpool.{{Cite web|date=2021-02-20|title=New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVR3-Y473|access-date=2021-03-05|website=National Archives and Records Administration}} By 1838 he was in

South America where he went into business with William Joseph Myers, a Liverpool merchant. They set up a merchant house at the port of Valparaiso in Chile, trading as Myers, Bland and Company. In the 1830s Bland was speculating on a new agricultural fertilizer, guano, the accumulated droppings of sea birds over many centuries. In July 1839 through the Myers, Bland and Company he sent thirty bags of guano to Liverpool from Valparaiso on board the ship Heroine.{{Cite book|last=|title=British Tramp Shipping, 1750–1914|publisher=Liverpool University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-1-786-94911-0|editor-last=Craig|editor-first=R|pages=85–120|chapter=The African Guano Trade}}

In 1838 in Valparasio, Chile, Bland had a son Horatio Bland Guerra. By the 1840s a wealthy Bland moved to England, where on 3 August 1847 he married Emily Alicia Cherry (1826–1868),{{Cite web|date=|title=England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:264M-9W5|access-date=2021-03-05|website=findmypast}} the oldest daughter of the Rector of Burghfield Rev Henry Curtis Cherry{{Cite web|title=Cherry, Henry Curtis (antiquarian)|url=https://collections.reading.ac.uk/special-collections/collections/cherry-henry-curtis-antiquarian/|access-date=2021-03-05|website=Collections - Special Collections|language=en-US}} and his first wife Anne Alicia Cameron. The Bland's lived in a large Georgian house called Culverlands at Burghfield Hill. Bland also owned adjoining land at Burghfield Common and in 1855 he bought Hartley Grange at Hartley Witney, Hampshire.{{Cite book|url=http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4/id/339946|title=Post Office Directory for Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorsetshire 1855|publisher=Kelly and Co.|year=1855}}

Bland's wife Emily Bland died on a trip to Jerusalem in March 1868{{Cite news|date=1868-04-09|title=The Atlas|page=14}} where she is buried in the Protestant Cemetery. Bland founded Mrs Bland’s School{{Cite web|title=Mrs Bland's Infant and Nursery School|url=https://www.mrsblandsinfants.co.uk/|access-date=2021-03-05|website=Mrs Bland's Infant and Nursery School}} at Burghfield Common in memory of his wife.{{Cite web|title=Site of original Mrs Bland's Infant School, Burghfield Common|url=https://heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MWB19624&resourceID=1030|access-date=2021-03-05|website=heritagegateway.org.uk}} The school bell was a large Japanese temple bell dating to 1746 that Bland had collected on his travels. In 1953 it was given to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.{{Cite web|title=Temple Bell|url=https://collections.ashmolean.org/collection/browse-9148/object/80645|access-date=2021-03-05|website=Ashmolean Museum online collections}}

Family scandal in the courts made the newspapers in 1850s.{{Cite news|date=1858-12-18|title=Reading Mercury}} Emily Bland’s father, Rev Henry Cherry attempted kidnapping his second wife Emily Mary Sutherland.{{Cite web|date=2020-03-13|title=England Marriages, 1538–1973|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NVYP-V7Y|access-date=2021-03-05|website=Familysearch}} 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.

In 1861 Bland commissioned the architect Walter Scott{{Cite web|title="Hillfields," Hermit's Hill, Burghfield, near Reading, Berkshire - Building {{!}} Architects of Greater Manchester|url=https://manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/buildings/hillfields-hermits-hill-burghfield-near-reading-berkshire|access-date=2021-03-05|website=manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk}} of Liverpool to design a new red and blue brick gabled house with a slate roof on his land at Burghfield Common called Hillfields. Hillfields was constructed at a cost of £2961. Today it is the headquarters for Guide Dogs for the Blind. He had a "detached Brick and Slated Building erected for a Museum" according to the 1892 Hillfields house sale catalogue.{{Cite web|date=1892|title=Sale catalogue of the Hillfields Estate, Burghfield|url=http://ww2.berkshirenclosure.org.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=DEX1940&pos=1|access-date=2021-03-05|website=Berkshire Record Office Collections}}

In 1874 Bland built a new museum in Burghfield for his growing museum collection, replacing the smaller museum building at Hillfields.{{Cite news|date=1882-06-03|title=Reading Observer}} 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.

Bland died on 31 March 1876, aged 73,{{Cite web|date=2018-08-30|title=England and Wales, National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1957|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPJ9-BXHS|access-date=2021-03-05|website=FamilySearch}} and was buried at St Mary’s churchyard, Burghfield. He gave Hillfields house to his nephew Thomas Bland Garland, another property to nephew Marcus Horatio Bland{{Cite web|title=Company Evolution {{!}} The Bland Group|url=https://www.blandgroup.com/company/evolution-of-bland-group|access-date=2021-03-05|website=www.blandgroup.com|language=en}} and the residue of his estate to his son Horatio Bland Guerra.{{Cite news|date=1876-05-13|title=Wills and Bequests|pages=24–25|work=Illustrated London News}} Bland Garland offered the Bland Collection to Reading Corporation in 1877. New museum galleries were built at Reading Town Hall{{Cite news|date=1879-03-08|title=Reading Mercury|page=6}} and the collection was permanently transferred to Reading Museum in September 1882.{{Cite news|date=1882-06-03|title=Opening of New Public Buildings|work=Reading Mercury}}

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Category:1876 deaths

Category:19th-century British businesspeople

Category:19th-century art collectors

Category:People from Newfoundland (island)

Category:People from Burghfield