Alfred Blomfield
Bishop of Colchester
DioceseDiocese of St Albans
In office1882–1894
SuccessorHenry Johnson
Other post(s)Archdeacon of Essex (1878–1882)
Archdeacon of Colchester (1882–1894)
Orders
Ordination1858 (priest)
Consecration1882
by Archibald Tait
Personal details
Born(1833-08-31)31 August 1833
Fulham, Middlesex, England
Died5 November 1894(1894-11-05) (aged 61)
Brentwood, Essex, England
NationalityBritish
DenominationAnglican
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
All Souls College, Oxford

The Right Reverend Alfred Blomfield D.D.[1][2] (31 August 1833[3] – 5 November 1894)[4][5] was an Anglican bishop[6] in the last decades of the 19th century.

Alfred was the youngest son of Charles James Blomfield, Bishop of London,[7] and brother of architect Arthur Blomfield, children's writer Lucy Elizabeth Bather and Admiral Henry John Blomfield. He was educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford before being awarded a Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, where he gained his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1855 and his Oxford Master of Arts (MA Oxon) in 1857.[3] From 1857, he was a Curate at Kidderminster, then its Vicar,[8] having been ordained priest in 1858[3] (and presumably deacon the previous year). At Kidderminster, he initially served under Thomas Legh Claughton as vicar, who he would later work alongside as the first Bishop of St Albans.[9]

After this, he held further incumbencies in St Philip's Stepney (1862–65),[10] St Matthew's City Road (1865–71) in Islington,[11] and Barking (1871-1882, under the patronage of his former college)[12] becoming Archdeacon of Essex in the Diocese of St Albans (1878–1882).[8] From there he moved to become Archdeacon of Colchester in the same diocese in 1882, an office which had previously been held by his father, and at the same time the first Bishop of Colchester (a suffragan bishop then in the Diocese of St Albans)[2] in over 200 years, for twelve years[13] until 1894. He was ordained (consecrated) a bishop (on which day he took up the See of Colchester) by Archibald Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, on 24 June 1882 at St Albans Cathedral.[3] He died in post, in Brentwood, Essex leaving a widow.[4][9] His tomb lies in the north transept of St Alban's Cathedral.[14] he had become a Doctor of Divinity honoris causa (DD) by his university days prior to his consecration.[3] He was a Select Preacher at Oxford in 1869.[15]

The National Portrait Gallery holds an 1883 Woodburytype photograph of Blomfield as Bishop of Colchester.[16]

Writing and publications

He wrote a posthumous memoir of his father, in 1863, and a collection of his sermons, titled Sermons in Town and Country, was published in 1871.[17][18][15] While vicar at St Matthew's City Road, a paper he delivered in 1868 celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the church's foundation was also published.[11] An opponent of higher criticism, he authored The Old Testament and The New Criticism in 1893 , a work of Biblical criticism refuting the scholarship of Professor Samuel Rolles Driver.[19][20][21]

His sermons The Manifestation of the Spirit Given to Profit Withal and Christ the Light of the World were published in 1883 and 1884 respectively.[22][23]

Blomfield's January 1872 letter to John Jackson, Bishop of London concerning the implications of the case Elphinstone v Purchas (later Hebbert v Purchas) in 1870-71 on ritualism in the Anglican church, was published with the title Episcopal Patronage and Clerical Liberty. [24] In it, he argued that the Bishop had "taken up a position that must gravely embarrass your relations towards the entire body of High Churchmen".[25]

References

  1. ^ NPG details
  2. ^ a b Albans, Church of England Diocese of St (1884). S. Albans Diocesan Calendar and County Handbook. Benham and Company. p. 87.
  3. ^ a b c d e WikiSource: Men of the Time, eleventh edition — Blomfield, Alfred (Accessed 29 December 2016)
  4. ^ a b "Clerical obituary". Church Times. No. 1660. 16 November 1894. p. 1226. ISSN 0009-658X. Retrieved 29 December 2016 – via UK Press Online archives.
  5. ^ Obituary- The Bishop Of Colchester The Times, Tuesday, 6 November 1894; p. 10; Issue 34414; col. C.
  6. ^ ”Church History in Queen Victoria's Reign” Fowler, M: Whitefish Kessinger Publishing, 2005 ISBN 1-4179-7356-0
  7. ^ “A memoir of Charles James Blomfield” Blomfield, A: London, B. Fellowes, 1863
  8. ^ a b "The Clergy List, Clerical Guide and Ecclesiastical Directory" London, Hamilton & Co 1889
  9. ^ a b The Essex Review: An Illustrated Quarterly Record of Everything of Permanent Interest in the County. E. Durant and Company. 1895.
  10. ^ "Survey of London | St Philip's Church Library and the Royal London Museum". surveyoflondon.org. Retrieved 23 January 2022.
  11. ^ a b Colchester.), Alfred BLOMFIELD (Bishop of (1868). Twenty Years at S. Matthew's. A paper read before the S. Matthew's Church Association, etc. Joseph Masters.
  12. ^ The Essex Review: An Illustrated Quarterly Record of Everything of Permanent Interest in the County. E. Durant and Company. 1895. p. 7.
  13. ^ The Times, Thursday, Jan 03, 1894; pg. 3; Issue 34464; col G Ecclesiastical Intelligence — New Bishop of Colchester
  14. ^ "St Albans abbey: The abbey church building | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
  15. ^ a b Cooper, Thompson. "Blomfield, Alfred". Men of the Time, eleventh edition.
  16. ^ "Alfred Blomfield - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  17. ^ Colchester.), Alfred Blomfield (Bishop Suffragan of (1871). Sermons in Town and Country. London.
  18. ^ Blomfield, Alfred (1863). A Memoir of Charles James Blomfield, D.D. Bishop of London, with selections from his correspondence: Edited by his son Alfred Blomfield. With a portrait. John Murray.
  19. ^ Price, Ira M. (1894). "The Old Testament and the New Criticism . Alfred Blomfield". The Biblical World. 3 (2): 152. doi:10.1086/471397. ISSN 0190-3578.
  20. ^ Kurtz, Paul Michael (29 October 2018). Kaiser, Christ, and Canaan: The Religion of Israel in Protestant Germany, 1871-1918. Mohr Siebeck. p. 77. ISBN 978-3-16-155496-4.
  21. ^ The Essex Review: An Illustrated Quarterly Record of Everything of Permanent Interest in the County. E. Durant and Company. 1895. p. 7.
  22. ^ Colchester.), Alfred Blomfield (Bishop Suffragan of (1884). Christ the Light of the World. A Sermon [John Viii. 12], Etc. Parker & Company.
  23. ^ Colchester.), Alfred Blomfield (bp of (1883). The manifestation of the Spirit given to profit withal, a sermon. Rivingtons.
  24. ^ Colchester.), Alfred BLOMFIELD (Bishop of (1872). Episcopal Patronage and Clerical Liberty. A letter to ... the Lord Bishop of London. G. J. Palmer.
  25. ^ Colchester.), Alfred BLOMFIELD (Bishop of (1872). Episcopal Patronage and Clerical Liberty. A letter to ... the Lord Bishop of London. G. J. Palmer. p. 19.
Church of England titles in abeyance Bishop of Colchester 1882–1894 Succeeded byHenry Johnson
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