BLOMEFIELD, MILES (1525–1574?), alchemist, has recorded some particulars of his birth and parentage in a quaint note written by himself in a volume which is preserved in the library of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and which contains a unique copy of ‘the boke called the Informacyon for pylgrymes vnto the holy lande,’ printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1524: ‘I, Myles Blomefylde, of Burye Saynct Edmunde in Sulfolke, was borne ye yeare following after ye pryntyng of this boke, (that is to saye) in the yeare of our Lorde 1525, the 5 day of Apryll, betwene 10 & 11, in ye nyght, nyghest xi. my fathers name John, and my mothers name Anne.' He had a license from the university of Cambridge to practise physic in 1552, and he followed his profession in his native town, though he appears to have been at Venice in 1568. It is supposed that he was living in 1574. Blomefield was an adept in alchemy, a collector of old and curious books, and the author of: 1. ‘Blomfylds Quintaessens, or the Regiment of Life,’ manuscript in the Cambridge University Library, Dd. 3, 83, art. 6. Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, and said to be hardly the production of a sane mind. 2. ‘Blomefield’s Blossoms, or the Campe of Philosophy.' Printed in Elias Ashmole's ‘Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum,’ 305-93. Tanner and Warton confound him with Wi11iam Blomefield, alias Rattlesden, sometime monk of Bury, and afterwards vicar of St. Simon and St. Jude at Norwich.
[Ashmole’s Theatrum Chemicum. 475; Baker MS. xxiv. 117; Cat. of Camb. Univ. MSS. i. 183; Cooper's Athenæ: Cantab. i. 327; Notes and Queries, lst ser. i. 60, 90; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Warton's Hist. of English Poetry (1840), iii. 83.]
BLOMEFIELD, Sir THOMAS (1744–1822), baronet, of Attleborough, Norfolk, general and colonel-commandant royal artillery, to whose untiring labours as inspector of artillery and superintendent of the royal foundries the progress of the British artillery was largely due, was son of the Rev. Thos. Blomefie1d, M.A., rector of Hartley and Chalk, Kent, and chaplain to the Duke of Dorset, and was born on 16 June 1744. He was destined for the navy, and shipped in the Cambridge, 80 guns, when that vessel was commissioned by his fat, her‘s intimate friend, Sir Piercy Brett, in September 1755. How long he remained afloat does not appear. but on 9 Feb. 1758 he entered as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, where his abilities attracted the notice of Müller, then professor of fortification and artillery whose friendship he retained ever after. In the unusually short period of eleven months he passed out as a lieutenant-fireworker, and soon after, when only fifteen, was appointed to command a bomb-ketch, under the orders of Admiral Rodney, at the bombardment of Havre, subsequently joining the fleet under Admiral Hawke engaged in blockading M. de Conflans at Quiberon (the arduous nature of these blockading duties is strikingly brought out in Burrow’s Life of Admiral Lord Hawke). He next served in the West Indies, at the capture of Martinique, the siege and capture of the Havannah, and afterwards at Pensacola and Mobile. In 1771, while a first-lieutenant, he became personal aide-de-camp to General Conway, then master-general of the ordnance, a post in which he was continued by Conway's successor at the Ordnance, Lord Townshend. In 1771 Blomefield, who had become a captain-lieutenant, resigned his appointment as aide-de-camp, and proceeded to America as brigade-major to Brigadier Phillips, royal artillery. Among his services at this period was the construction of flosting batteries on the Canadian lakes; he was also actively engaged with the army under General Burgoyne until severely wounded by a musket-ball in the head in the action preceding the unfortunate convention at Saratoga. In the spring of 1779, Blomefield resumed his duties as aide-camp to the master-general, and in the following year attained the rank of captain. and was appointed inspector of artillery and super-intendent of the Royal Brass Foundry. Never was the need of military supervision over military manufactures more apparent. It is recorded that when, in consequence of the complaints of Admiral Barrington at a most critical period in 1779, the elder Congreve was sent down to inspect the powder on board the king’s ships, only four serviceable barrels were found in the whole fleet. The guns were not less inferior in quality; bursting with attendant loss of life was of frequent occurrence, and would doubtless have been more frequent but for the roguery of the powder-contractors. Attacking these abuses vigorously. Captain Blomefield, in the very first year of his office, condemned no fewer than 496 pieces of ordnance in proof; and so fully were the advantages of the new rules recognised, that in 1783 a royal warrant was issued reorganising the whole department, which was placed under his orders. From this period dates the high character of British cast-iron and brass guns. Blomefield
