BLAND, John (1691-1743), of Hulme Hall, Lancs. and Kippax Park, Yorks.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1713 - 1727

Family and Education

bap. 10 Sept. 1691, o. surv. s. of Sir John Bland, 4th Bt.*  educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1707. m. 16 Oct. 1716 (with £8,000), Frances, da. of Hon. Heneage Finch I*, 1st Earl of Aylesford, sis. of Hon. Heneage Finch II* and Hon. John Finch†, 3s. (1 d.v.p.) 4da.  suc. fa. as 5th Bt. 25 Oct. 1715.1

Offices Held

Biography

Bland’s entry into public life would seem to have been an adjunct to his education, because in 1711 he joined the retinue of Britain’s plenipotentiaries at Utrecht. By September 1712 his father was organizing his election for the county of Lancashire, which did indeed return him in the following year. The Worsley list and two further comparisons of the 1713 and 1715 Parliaments all classed Bland as a Tory. During the 1714 session he told, on 25 June, against a motion that a Southwark man had the right to vote, after having affirmed rather than take the oath of abjuration. After the death of Queen Anne he seems to have been much engaged in canvassing for the next election, suggesting to Legh that a worthy candidate at Newton might be Sir Christopher Musgrave, 5th Bt.*, in retreat from problems at Carlisle, and paying visits to places such as Preston in October 1714 in order to ensure his own re-election. Bland retained his seat until 1727 when he retired at the early age of 35. His reputation as a Jacobite had led to his arrest in November 1715 and also to his removal from the Lancashire bench. He seems to have shifted the centre of his political activity away from Yorkshire towards the Lancashire estates brought into the family by his mother. He was active in Manchester’s affairs, exhibiting some of his father’s distrust of non-Anglicans in a dispute in 1731 over a projected workhouse in the town. In a further echo of his father and his difficulties in obtaining employment, Bland set out in his will the hope that ‘as it was his warmest desire that no son of his might have any dependence on the government, so he would wish to have a reversion of some patent place for life purchased for his said [second] son Hungerford’. The remainder of the will dwelt on strategies for paying off debts and raising portions for his younger children. He died at Bath on 9 Apr. 1743.2

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Authors: Eveline Cruickshanks / Stuart Handley

Notes

  • 1. N. Carlisle, Colls. Bland Fam. 51–52.
  • 2. Carlisle, 51; HMC Portland, v. 221; John Rylands Univ. Lib. Manchester, Legh of Lyme mss corresp. Bland to Peter Legh, 7 Sept. 1714; Devonshire mss at Chatsworth House, Finch–Halifax pprs. box. 3, no.107, Richard Assheton to [?Hon. Heneage Finch II], 15 Oct. 1714; CJ, xviii. 328; L. K. J. Glassey, Appt. JPs, 292; Lancs. RO, Kenyon mss DDKe 9/114/5, Bland to Thomas Kenyon and Thomas Pigot, n.d. [1730]; Carlisle, 51–55; Gent. Mag. 1743, p. 208.