Introduction
Fig. 1: Richmond, Blomfield.
The c.1860 – 1866 Caen stone, and white–, red–, yellow–, and grey–marble memorial to Charles James Blomfield (29 May 1786 – 5 August 1857), Bishop of London from 1828 to1856, by his friend the prolific portrait artist George Richmond (28 March 1809 – 19 March 1896), can be found, behind the quire, in the Dean’s Aisle, in the penultimate east bay of the South Aisle of the Cathedral floor.
In an unprecedented, innovative way, the entire bay was transformed to form part of the memorial. The side panels were “filled in with coloured marbles” whilst to the window were added the “arms of the deceased prelate in stained glass, with inscription referring to the monument below”, in “patterns with pieces of blue and green glass” (Morning Post, 31 October 1868). The stained-glass windows were subsequently destroyed when the Cathedral was bombed during the Blitz (Figs 2 and 3).
Figs 2 and 3: Blomfield Memorial Window (St Paul’s Cathedral Collection, SPCAA/D/1/13/5); Richmond, Blomfield.
Blomfield evidently worked closely on the installation with then Cathedral surveyor F.C. Penrose, since there is a clear relationship between Richmond’s memorial bay and the contemporaneous, c.1861 memorial pulpit designed by Penrose and fashioned by William Field in memory of Captain Robert Fitzgerald, of the 12th Bombay Native Infantry and the 5th Punjab Cavalry, as well as the Punjab Frontier Force more generally.
The pulpit’s upper storey, polychrome panels closely resemble those surrounding Blomfield in the bay behind him, perhaps suggesting that Field had a hand in Blomfield’s overall commemoration, with the panels set concavely, for Blomfield, and convexly, for Fitzgerald. The pulpit was originally located under the dome but can now be found in the Cathedral triforium (Figs 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9).
Figs 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9: Penrose and Field, Fitzgerald; Richmond, Blomfield.
The Life and Work of Charles James Blomfield
Early Life and Cambridge
Fig. 10: Richmond, Blomfield.
(Fig. 10) Blomfield was born on 29 May 1786 at Bury St Edmunds, the son of a schoolmaster and his wife, and the eldest of six children. In 1794, the precocious, highly ambitious, although sickly and diminutive, ‘Tit’ Blomfield entered Bury Grammar School, declaring early his determination to become a bishop.
In 1799, Blomfield won the King’s scholarship at Eton College, but his father declined to allow him to attend. In 1804, Blomfield entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where his over–exertions resulted in a long–term nervous condition. In 1805, Blomfield won both a scholarship and Browne’s prize for his Latin ode, a language central to his Cathedral commemoration, as we shall see (Fig. 11).
Fig. 11: Richmond, Blomfield.
In 1806, Blomfield won both the Craven scholarship and Browne’s prize for the second year running, this time for his Greek ode. In 1808, Blomfield graduated, winning both the chancellor’s medal and member’s prize for his Latin dissertation. During his time as an undergraduate, Blomfield “never missed morning chapel” and “read for twelve hours or more every day” (Chadwick, I: 133) (Fig. 12).
Fig. 12: Blomfield, Richmond.
Blomfield Enters the Church and Early Classical Publications
In 1809, Blomfield was elected a fellow of Trinity. In 1810, he was ordained first deacon and then priest, accepting a curacy at Chesterford, Essex, where he lived; and at Quarrington in Lincolnshire. He also married Anna Maria Hemblington, the couple going on to have six children, only one of whom survived infancy.
In 1810, Blomfield published an edition of Prometheus Vinctus. In 1811, he resigned his Chesterfield living, but retained Quarrington for the remainder of the decade. He took up a new role as rector of Dunton, in Buckinghamshire, where he remained until 1817. The small, already committed parish left Blomfield plenty of time to pursue his classical studies.
In 1812, Blomfield published an edition of Septem contra Thebas; in 1813 the journal Museum Criticum; in 1814, an edition of the Persae; in 1815 an edition of Callimachus; in 1820 an edition of Agamemnon; and in 1821, of Euripides.
In 1823, Blomfield contributed fragments of Sappho and others to an edition of Poetae minores Graeci; and, in 1824, published an edition of the Choephoroe. In the same period, Blomfield also contributed regularly, and sometimes combatively, to the Edinburgh Review.
In addition to being a Justice of the Peace, from 1813, and establishing an Aylesbury branch of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the increasingly “Evangelical High Church” (Strong, 174), but Liberal Blomfield also began to write on Biblical topics, focussing on Jewish tradition and the doctrinal understanding of scripture. Blomfield also supported Catholic Emancipation, high Anglican views that are again evoked on his Cathedral memorial, as we shall see.
The Move to London and St Paul’s Connections
In 1817, Blomfield was appointed to the rectory and vicarage of Great and Little Chesterford; to the rectory of Tuddenham, Suffolk; and chaplain to Bishop Howley of London.
Following the death of Blomfield’s wife in 1818, he married Dorothy Kent in 1819, the couple ultimately having eleven children together. Blomfield’s daughter Lucy became a children’s author, his fourth son Arthur William Blomfield an architect (The Times, 1 November 1899).
Arthur was one of a complex, subsequent architectural dynasty who played a significant role in the Pantheon. For example, Blomfield’s son was responsible, with Thomas Earp and Sons, for the c.1884 – 1885 Crypt memorial to Piers Calveley Claughton, Bishop of St Helena and Colombo, in the Chapel of St Faith in the Crypt, colonial bishoprics central to Blomfield’s mission, as we shall see (Fig. 13).
Fig. 13: Blomfield a8nd Earp, Claughton.
In 1888, Blomfield was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy alongside Richmond’s son, William Blake Richmond, and New Sculptor Edward Onslow Ford (Graphic, 28 January 1888) (Figs 14 and 15).
Fig. 14: New Associates of the Royal Academy. Illustration for The Graphic, 28 January 1888 (Look and Learn).
Fig. 15: Illustrated London News (5 May 1888. © Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans).
Bishop Blomfield’s grandson, meanwhile, Reginald Blomfield (The Times, 27 January 1934), was responsible, with William Bainbridge Reynolds, for the c.1912 – 1916 ledger to Anglo–Dutch painter Lawrence Alma–Tadema in the Crypt, to whom we shall return (Fig. 16).
Fig. 16: Blomfield and Reynolds, Alma–Tadema.
It also seems likely that, in Blomfield’s extended family, was A. Blomfield Jackson, the man responsible for the 1903 Crypt memorial to ecclesiastical philanthropist Maria Mary Fussell, who shared Blomfield’s passion for erecting new London churches, as we shall see, bequeathing some £110,000 for this purpose at her death (Fig. 17).
Fig. 17: Jackson, Fussell.
Growing Religious Authority
Fig. 18: Richmond, Blomfield.
(Fig. 18) In 1819, Blomfield took up a lucrative, populous new post at St Botolph without Bishopsgate, in London. In 1820, he became a Doctor of Divinity.
Responding to the challenge of his new urban role, the utilitarian Blomfield reorganised parish finances, promoted infant schools, expounded basic doctrines, and preached against heterodoxy.
In 1822, Blomfield was appointed Archdeacon of Colchester. In 1824, he published a Manual of Family Prayers, and was appointed Bishop of Chester.
There, he emphasised observance of the rubric, the sabbath, and gown wearing in the pulpit, the outfit he sports in his Cathedral memorial.
In 1826, Blomfield helped relieve distressed weavers in the City, and was depicted, portly and bewigged, in engravings by Samuel Lane and Charles Penny. Blomfield is bare–headed in his Cathedral memorial (Figs 19 and 20).
Figs 19 and 20: After Samuel Lane, Charles James Blomfield, stipple engraving, c, 1826, NPG D16139; C.S. Taylor after Charles Penny, Charles James Blomfield, stipple engraving, published 1 July 1826, NPG D31892 (Both © National Portrait Gallery, London; CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).