Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/113

 

 BLAAUW, WILLIAM HENRY (1793–1870), antiquary, was born in London 25 May 1793. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where, after taking a first class in classics, he graduated B.A. in 1813, and M.A. in 1815. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1850; was treasurer of the Camden Society for many years, and member of many other learned societies. Blaauw resided at Newick, near Lewes, Sussex, and under his guidance the Sussex Archæological Society was founded in 1846. He was the editor of the society's collections till 1856, when the eighth volume was issued, and was its honorary secretary until 1867. He died 26 April 1870.

Blaauw's chief work was a history of the barons' war of Henry III's reign, which was first published in 1844. It is a very careful production, is especially valuable in its topographical details, and forms the chief modern authority on its subject. Its author was engaged at the time of his death in preparing a revised edition, and this was issued under Mr. C. H. Pearson's editorship in 1871. Between 1846 and 1861 Blaauw contributed nearly thirty papers on Sussex archæology to the ‘Sussex Archæological Collections.’ He communicated a paper on Queen Matilda and her daughter to the ‘Archæologia’ (xxxii. 108) in 1846, and he exhibited many archæological treasures at meetings of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Archæological Institute in London. A portrait of Blaauw is prefixed to vol. xxii. of the ‘Sussex Archæological Collections.’

 BLACADER or BLACKADER, ROBERT (d. 1508), archbishop of Glasgow, was the son of Sir Robert Blacader, of Tulliallan, by Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of Sir James Edmestone, of Edmestone. He is first mentioned as a wrebendary of Glasgow and rector of Cardross. On 23 June 1480 he sat among the lords of council as bishop elect of Aberdeen. He was translated to the see of Glasgow previously to February 1484. The see was erected into an archbishopric 9 Jan. 1492. On account of this a bitter rivalry ensued between him and the archbishop of St. Andrews, and the estates had to intervene to silence their quarrels. Archbishop Blacader was frequently employed in the public transactions with the English, especially in 1505. Along with the Earl of Bothwell and Andrew Foreman, prior of Pittenweem, he negotiated a marriage between King James IV and Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII. In 1494 the arch-bishop sent up thirty persons from the district of Kyle, in Ayrshire, who had been convicted of the Lollard heresy by the ecclesiastical judicatories, for punishment by the civil power; but nothing further was done in the matter. He died 8 July 1508 (Regist. Episcop. Glasg. ii. 616). According to Knox (Works, i. 12) and Bishop Lesley (Hist. ed. 1830, p. 78), the latter of whom gives the date of his death as 26 July, he died in the Holy Land, during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. David Laing, in 'Proceedings of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries,' ii. 222, quotes extracts from the contemporary diary of the Venetian, Maria Sanuto, describing the reception by the doge of Venice of the ‘rich Scottish bishop,’ who arrived there in May 1508 on his way to Jerusalem. This diary also states that the vessel from Jaffa, in Palestine, returned to Venice in November 1508, and that the ‘rich bishop’ was one of the twenty-seven pilgrims who died on the voyage.

 BLACATER, ADAM (fl. 1319), was descended from a family of good position in Scotland, and after studying at several universities on the continent became successively professor of philosophy at Cracow in Poland, professor of the same subject at Bologna, and rector of one of the colleges of the university of Paris. He wrote ‘Dissertatio pro Alexandro M. contra T. Livii locum ex decade i. lib, ix.,’ which was published at Lyons.

 BLACK, ADAM (1784–1874), politician and publisher, was the son of a builder in Edinburgh, and was born 20 Feb. 1784 in Charles Street, a few doors from the birthplace of Lord Jeffrey. He was educated at the High School of Edinburgh, and during one session attended the Greek class at the university. After serving an apprenticeship of five years to a bookseller in Edinburgh, he went to London, where he was for two years assistant in the house of Lackington, Allen, & Co., the ‘Temple of the Muses,’ Finsbury. In 1808 he returned to Edinburgh, where, after carrying on a bookselling business for