John Bligh

John Bligh of Abingdon Street Westminster was buried in the north cloister of Westminster Abbey on 6th February 1815 aged 65. The inscription on his gravestone has now worn away but it was recorded in an early 19th century guidebook and can be translated:

John Bligh descended from an ancient Cornish family but born of an unknown class he was happily adorned with great learning; sound in his way of life, always devoted to God the Father with the utmost faith, he lived loved by his family, he died mourned by them. His body lies buried beneath this marble: what do you dare to make known of the Spirit, mortal? In you, Jesus the Victim, we hope for the oblivion of sinners, through you the rewards of virtue. He died 3 Kalends of February aged 65 in the year since the coming of Christ 1815

He appears to have been in the legal profession and was a son of Richard Bligh of Bodmin in Cornwall, tallow chandler, and his wife Mary. He was baptised in the town on 25th April 1750. His brothers were Reginald and Richard. He was Secretary of the Chelsea waterworks. A son Richard, by his first wife Lucy Shuter, attended Westminster School as a King's Scholar (he was a lawyer and author and married a daughter of Vice Admiral William Bligh (of the ship Bounty) and died in 1838. His son Richard, born in 1819, was also at the School). His wife mentioned in his will was Mary and his other children were Lucy (Stanley), John and Timothy.

Further reading

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004