Author: Bland, John
Biography:
BLAND, John (1720-1808: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the son of Nathaniel Bland of Ireland, a judge in Dublin and Vicar-General of Ardfert and Aghadoe, and Diana (Kemeys) Bland. The Blands are an ancient Irish land-owning family but John seems to have been disinherited; his younger brother, James, was his father’s heir. He joined the army as a cornet in the dragoons and fought in the battle of Dettingen in 1743 and, on the government side, in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. He studied law and was called to the bar but deserted his profession to become an actor. He married Sarah Birch in Dublin in 1763 and they had several children (confusingly, his wife, also an actor, seems to have been known at Nancy). He became a manager of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. The actor Dorothy Jordan was his niece. (ancestry.co.uk 19 Apr. 2019; The Athenaeum 4 [1808] 277-78)