Bland, James Timothy (1773-1826), merchant and botanist

James Timothy Bland, the son of Joseph Bland (1745-1800) and his wife Jane (nee Cockshutt) (1746-1807) of Devonshire Street, was born on 16 October 1773, and baptised at St George the Martyr's, Camden, on 28 November 1773 (baptism register).

His father Joseph Bland, merchant, of Mincing Lane, died at his house (Bush Hill) in Herts., on 10 October 1800 (Oxford Journal, 18 Oct. 1800, p. 3). Mrs Bland, widow of the late Joseph Bland of Mincing Lane, died on 8 June 1807 (Morning Herald, 10 June 1800, p. 3).

By his will of 12 April 1798 Joseph Bland had bequeathed to Jane his widow, to Joseph and James Timothy Bland, merchants of Mincing Lane, London (presumably his sons), and to James Cockshutt of Huthwaite, Yorkshire (apparently James's uncle; see below), a messuage called 'Jollies' in Great Ilford, in trust to sell and merge the purchase money with the reset of his estate (Essex Record Office, D/DB T208/36,37); and on 22 April 1801 this house was duly sold (Essex Record Office D/DB T208/48).

Bland was a Fellow of the Linnean Society from at least 1802 (*List of the Linnean Society, 1802), his address being given as Mincing Lane. From 1809 his address was given as Fen Court, Fenchurch Street, and from 1820 as Huthwaite, near Sheffield.

On 4 October 1815 he married at Silkstone (Yorks.) Joanna Wells, a widow of the same place. In newspaper announcements of the wedding Bland is described as being of Huthwaite, and as the nephew of James Cockshutte of Wortley Iron Works, Huthwaite.

He died at his London lodgings in York Street on 3 June 1826 (London Packet, 7 June 1826, p. 1).

ancestry.co.uk Aris's Birmingham Gazette, 16 Oct. 1815, p. 3 Lancaster Gazette, 21 Oct. 1815, p. 3