Miles Bland

RAS obituary


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The Rev. Miles Bland, D.D., F.R.S., was one of the first Fellows of the Astronomical Society. He was born on October 11, 1786, at Sedbergh, in Yorkshire, where his family had resided for many generations. The Blands of Sedbergh appear, from Carlisle's Collections for a History of the Ancient Family of Bland, to have been the original stock of the family. Carlisle writes (p. 2): "The family of Bland is purely English, and of very high antiquity. Their surname is derived from Bland, or Bland's-Gill, a hamlet in the chapelry of Howgill, and Parish of Sedbergh." And he mentions William de Bland as doing good service to King Edward III in his wars in France. Thomas de Blande and Robert de Blande were specially included in a proclamation of September 25, 1386, and charged to take care that no arms or horses were sold to the king's enemies from the North Riding of Yorkshire; Patricius de Bland, of Sedbergh (p. 5), as one of some gentlemen appointed in 1333 to raise and command troops for an expedition against the Scots. Of the Sedbergh Blands was (p. 5) John Bland, Rector of Adisham in Kent, who had for a pupil at Adisham Edwin Sandys, afterwards Archbishop of York, and was one of the sufferers in Queen Mary's reign, having been burned at Canterbury on July 12, 1555.

Miles Bland was educated at Sedbergh School, from which he went to St. John's College, Cambridge, in October 1804. Private tuition at Cambridge was then little known. The great mathematical tutor of the day was Mr. John Dawson, a retired surgeon from Sedbergh, and a self-taught mathematician. Cambridge students went to read with him at Sedbergh in the summer vacations, and sent problems and questions to him from Cambridge for his solutions. Dr. Bland was wont to say that Mr. Dawson had had eleven Senior Wranglers for his pupils, and intended him to be the twelfth; but he was second, in 1808, to Bickersteth, afterwards Lord Langdale. Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of London, was third; and Sedgwick, the present Professor of Geology at Cambridge, and Bland's schoolfellow at Sedbergh, was fifth. Bland was elected Fellow of his College in 1808, and in 1809 was appointed Assistant Tutor, and con-tinued in the tuition, first as Assistant Tutor, and afterwards as joint tutor with Mr. Hornbuckle, until 1823, when he took the College living of Lilley in Hertfordshire, and married. He was very highly appreciated by his pupils as a lecturer, and not less as a friend and adviser. He resided at Lilley till failing health obliged him to seek change of climate at Ramsgate. After some years he returned to Lilley, and resided there for thirteen years: but he was obliged again to leave it in 1852, and resided at Ramsgate ever after. He never held any other preference than his living, except a prebend at Wells, little more than honorary. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Antiquarian Society, and a member of the Royal Society of Literature. He published a collection of Geometrical Problems, with an Appendix on Plane Trigonometry, a Treatise on Hydrostatics, Mechanical Problems, Problems in the different branches of Philosophy, and Algebraical Problems, better known as Bland's Equations, which have exercised the ingenuity of many a young mathematician. This last publication has passed through many editions. A trans-ation of it was published at Halle so recently as 1857. He drew up also Annotations on the Historical Books of the New Testament, but did not proceed with the publication of them beyond the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark. His vigour of mind and keen interest in everything that passed, and particularly in all that affected his University and his College, he retained to the end of his life. He died of old age, without illness and without suffering, on Dec. 27, 1867, at the age of 81 years.

Miles Bland's obituary appeared in Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 28:4 (1868), 75-76.