Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/283

  (1860) of assistant professor of Arabic and Persian in the Calcutta Madrasa. In 1861 he graduated M.A. and LL.D. at the university of Calcutta, choosing Hebrew for the subject of his examination. In the following year he left the Madrasa to become pro-rector and professor of mathematics, &c., at the Doveton College; but returning to the Madrasa in 1865, he remained there for the rest of his life, and was principal when he died.

Though Blochmann made some archæological tours in India and British Burma, he generally lived quietly in Calcutta, worked hard at Persian and Arabic, and in 1868 became philological secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In this position he was invaluable, and the list of his contributions to the society's 'Journal' and 'Proceedings' (Appendix D, Centenary Review of the Society's work, Calcutta, 1885) shows the extent and variety of his labours. Nothing connected with the history of Mohammedan India came amiss to him, but the most elaborate and valuable of his papers are his 'Contributions to the History and Geography of Bengal' (J. A. S. B. vols. xlii. xliii. xliv.) The work, however, on which his fame mainly rests is his translation of the 'Ain-i-Akbari' of Abul-Fazl, the first attempt at a thorough translation of the original; for the version of Francis Gladwin [q. v.], though a meritorious work for its time, is rather an abstract than a translation. Unhappily, Blochmann did not live to do more than translate the first volume (Calcutta, 1873), but the work was ably completed by Colonel H. S. Jarrett. Blochmann's notes are full and accurate, and throw a flood of light on the Emperor Akbar and his court, and on the administration of the Mogul empire. Prefixed to the translation is a valuable life of Abul-Fazl, of whom, however, he formed too high an estimate. Another important work was 'The Prosody of the Persians,' Calcutta, 1872. At the time of his death he had been working at a Persian dictionary, but no trace of the manuscript could be found among his papers. With all his learning, Blochmann was the most modest of men, and welcomed criticism and correction.

Overwork and the exhausting climate caused his early death on 13 July 1878. He is buried in the Circular Road cemetery, Calcutta. He married an Irish lady, who survived him, and left three children. A well-executed marble bust adorns the rooms of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.  BLOMEFIELD, LEONARD, formerly (1800–1893), naturalist, a younger son of George Leonard Jenyns, canon of Ely and chairman of the board of agriculture, was born in Pall Mall on 25 May 1800. His mother was a daughter of Dr. Heberden and a first cousin of Dr. William Wollaston. Upon the death of his cousin Soame Jenyns [q. v.] in 1787, George Leonard Jenyns had come in for the Bottisham Hall property in Cambridgeshire. Leonard's first recollection was the funeral of Lord Nelson. In 1813 he was moved from a school at Putney to Eton, where he remembered as dull schoolfellows the two Puseys. He took no part in the school games, but was devoted to chemistry, and was introduced to Sir Joseph Banks in 1817 as 'the Eton boy who lit his rooms with gas.' In 1818 he went to St, John's College, Cambridge, and took a pass degree four years later. In 1823 he was ordained deacon by Bishop Pelham of Exeter in Old Marylebone Church, and next year was ordained priest in Christ's College by the master, who was also bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Kaye, 'the first prelate to discard a wig.' After ordination he entered upon parish work immediately as curate of Swaffham Bulbeck, a parish of seven hundred souls, adjoining the Bottisham estate in Cambridgeshire. During the five years of his curacy he never saw his vicar. The latter resigned in 1828, and Jenyns was given the benefice by Bishop Sparke of Ely. He was the first resident vicar at Swaffham Bulbeck, but in the execution of the reforms that were necessary he observed the strictest moderation, and so gained the permanent good-will of his parishioners. He reorganised a local charity school which had got into evil hands, enlarged the vicarage house, and planted a garden. Cambridge was within an easy ride, and he was thus able to maintam an intimacy there with such of his contemporaries as shared his love of natural history. These were not numerous, but included such names as Henslow, Whewell, Darwin, Adam Sedgwick, Julius Hare, and Bishop Thirlwall. In 1834-5 (preface dated Swaffham Bulbeck, 24 Oct. 1835) he wrote his useful 'Manual of British Vertebrate Animals,' which was issued by the syndics of the Cambridge University Press, and was held 