[Calamy and Palmer; Acts and Memoirs of ye P'ticular Church of Christ in Northampton of which Mr. Samuel Blower was pastor; communications from Mr John Taylor. Northampton and Rev. Stephen Lepine, Abingdon. Berkshire.]
BLOXAM, ANDREW (1801–1878), naturalist, was born at Rugby 22 Sept. 1801, and was fourth son of Rev. R. R. Bloxam, one of the masters of Rugby School, which school he entered in 1809, leaving it in 1820 for Worcester College, Oxford, of which he afterwards became a fellow. In the autumn of 1824 he accepted the situation of naturalist on board the Blonde frigate, Captain Lord Byron, his eldest brother being the chaplain. The vessel conveyed the bodies of the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands, who had died in this country, to their native land, the voyage lasting eighteen months. A large collection of natural history specimens were made, and these were deposited in the British Museum on his return in 1826.
He took holy orders a few months later, and settled in Leicestershire at Twycross, afterwards removing to Harborough Magna, where he died 2 Feb. 1878. His labours were not confined to any one department; he wrote on conchology, ornithology, flowerless and flowering plants, and he possessed a critical knowledge of British ‘Rubi’ and ‘Rosæ,’ of which he published dried sets. In conjunction with Mr. Churchill Babington he wrote an account of the botany of Charnwood Forest for Potter's history of that district. He may be regarded as perhaps the last of the all-round British naturalists.
Bloxam married Ann, daughter of Rev. J. Roby, of Congerstone, and by her had a numerous family. A water-colour drawing by Turner, in the National Gallery, represents the six brothers Bloxam attending the funeral of their uncle, Sir T. Lawrence, R.A.
[Midland Naturalist, April 1878, pp. 88–90.]
BLOXHAM, JOHN (d. 1334?), a Carmelite, was educated at Oxford. He entered the Carmelite community at Chester, and finally rose to be provincial of the order in England. He was in high favour with Edward II and Edward III, by both of whom he was employed in important missions in Scotland and Ireland. He was energetic in promoting the interests of his order and in reforming abuses, which he found during his tours of inspection, both in Scotland and Ireland, as well as in England. He died at Oxford about the year 1334, and was buried there.
The following are the titles of works ascribed to Bloxham, none of which have been printed: 'Annotationes in Apocalypsim;' 'Hibernensium Ordinationes' 'Comment, in Sententias;' 'De Septem Signaculis;' 186 letters. Bloxham is said to have been a zealous advocate of the papal authority, and to have taught it as an essential article of faith.
[Leland's Comm. de Scriptoribus Britannicis, ii. 403; Bale's Scriptores Illustres Majoris Britanniæ Carmelitana.]
BLOXHAM, JOHN (d. 1387), warden of Merton College, Oxford. He was elected seventh warden of Merton in 1375. It is said that he was frequently employed by Edward III to execute his business in Scotland and Ireland, and further that he wrote 'Diversorum titulorim opuscula,' and 'Elegantes epistole.' He died in 1387, and was buried in the middle of the choir of his college chapel.
[Wood's Hist. and Antiquities of Oxford, i. 6, 23 (ed. Gutch); Leland, De Scriptoribusl Tanner's Bibl. Brit.]
BLUND or BLUNT, JOHN le (d. 1248) chancellor of York, was one of the leaders of the movement for the restoration of the university of Oxford to its ancient position as a seat of learning, in which the Franciscan friars, Edmund Rich, Adam de Marisco, and Robert Grosseteste, took a chief part. Having received his earlier education at Oxford, Blund, like Edmund Rich, transferred himself to the university of Paris. He was studying there in 1229 when the violent reprisals taken on the students by the order of the queen, for a brawl in which some tavern-keepers had been roughly handled, caused the dispersion of the whole body, scholars and teachers (Matt. Paris, iii. 168. ed. Luard). Blund, with other 'famosi Angli,' returned to his native country, where he resumed his residence at Oxford as a teacher, and rendered important assistance to Edmund Rich in his introduction of the Aristotelian philosophy. His celebrity as a theologian marked out Blond for preferment in the church. He was already canon of Chichester and chancellor of York (Gervas. Cantuar. Gesta Regum, ii. 129; Le Neve (ed. Hardy), iii. 163), when the sudden death of Archbishop Richard Grant (1 Aug. 1231) left the primatial throne vacant. The election first of Ralph Neville, bishop of Chichester, and then of John, the prior of Canterbury, had been successively annulled by the pope. The powerful Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, was Blund's patron. His influence with the monks of Canterbury assured
