Introduction

Biography

John was the son of John Blis­sard (cur­ate and vi­car of Hamp­stead Nor­reys for 46 years), and hus­band of Em­ily Ca­ro­line, eld­est daugh­ter of W. H. Stev­ens, cur­ate of Stoke next Guild­ford (mar­ried 1862, Farn­ham, Sur­rey).

He was ed­ucat­ed at St. John’s Col­lege, Cam­bridge (like his fa­ther), tak­ing his de­gree as a wrang­ler in 1858.

Shortly af­ter gra­du­ation, he was ap­point­ed ma­the­mat­ic­al mas­ter at Cheam Col­lege, which pre­pared boys for Eton and Har­row.

In 1860, he be­came cur­ate of St. John’s, Tun­bridge Wells, where he star­ted Sun­day schools dur­ing his two year ten­ure.

In 1862, he be­came cur­ate of Old Edg­bas­ton, and in 1868, vi­car of St. Au­gus­tine’s, Edg­bas­ton, Birm­ing­ham, serv­ing there un­til 1903.

In De­cem­ber 1892, he be­came rur­al dean of Birm­ing­ham.

He al­so served for 20 years as one of the ho­nor­ary sec­re­tar­ies of the Hos­pi­tal Sun­day Col­lect­ions Com­mit­tee and as chair­man of the Com­mit­tee of Man­age­ment of the Queen’s Hos­pi­tal.

For ma­ny years he was chair­man of the Mag­da­len In­sti­tu­tion, and helped found the Uni­ver­si­ty Gra­du­ates’ Club, start­ed in Birm­ing­ham in 1865, and The Men­di­ci­ty So­ci­ety (lat­er re­named the Cha­ri­ty Or­ga­ni­sa­tion So­ci­ety).

Works

• Sidelights on Re­ve­la­tion (Lon­don, 1890)