Friends of Hastings Cemetery

Henry Blomfield was born in Finsbury in North London on 9th April 1817, the son of Samuel Blomfield, a London cutler or knife-maker.  Elizabeth Eldridge was born in Hastings on 23rd April 1822, the daughter of Edward and Sarah Eldridge.

William Knibb, a Baptist missionary and anti-slavery campaigner, toured England to speak of his work in Jamaica and to recruit teachers for the Baptist Missionary Society. Elizabeth Eldridge and her friend Henry Blomfield both decided to work as school teachers in Jamaica. Elizabeth appartantently was not be allowed to travel to Jamaica as a single woman, so she and Henry were married on 5th November 1840 at the Croft Chapel, a Non-Conformist church located in Gloucester Place, Hastings.

They arrived in Jamaica in 1841 and taught at a Baptist mission near Cockpit Country. The couple's first child was born in Jamaica on 8th April 1842 and he was given the name William Knibb Blomfield in honour of William Knibb.  A second son, Henry, was born in 1844.

William and Elizabeth's third child, Sarah Eldridge Blomfield, was born in Jamaica in 1846.  After their son Henry died in 1846, William and Elizabeth Blomfield decided to return to England with their two surviving children in 1847.

A second daughter,Barbara Mary Blomfield, was born in Hastings in 1848.

The family then moved to New Romney, Kent, where he apparently worked as a Baptist Minister.  Elizabeth gave birth to three more sons -John Henry Blomfield [birth registered in the Romney Marsh district during the June Quarter of 1850 ], Edwin Henry Blomfield, who was born on 2nd March 1852, and Alfred Samuel Blomfield, who was born early in 1854, but died before reaching his first birthday.

Around 1856, Henry and Elizabeth Blomfield, together with their five surviving children, returned to Hastings in Sussex. The family moved into 1 Clarence Terrace, in Ore. They decided to set up a Boarding & Day School at their new home and, on 14th March 1856, they placed the advertisement opposite in the Hastings & St Leonards News.

In the 1861 census the Blomfields were still using their house in Clarence Terrace as a Boarding & Day School.  A total of six pupils are shown listed as boarders.  In the census return, Henry Blomfield is described as a "Baptist Minister", aged 44.  There had been two more additions to the Blomfield family since they had set up home in Ore. Elizabeth Hannah Blomfield (known as "Lizzie"),

who was born in 1858, and George Wills Blomfield, born on 18th March 1860.

Also born at Clarence Terrace were Edward Eldridge Blomfield, born in 1862, and Thomas Nevill Blomfield, who was born in 1864.

In 1878 Henry and were running a lodging house at 1 Magdalen Terrace, St. Leonards.  

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John Clarke Hume was the son of Sarah, and her husband, John Alexander Hume.

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Next - William Knibb Blomfield

The Memorial to William Knibb Blomfield on the front face in the photo on the right, and John Clarke Hume on the stone below it, are not easily readable.