New DNB	Sources sheet

Subject's name	Bladen	Thomas	68455

MATERIAL USED IN THE PREPARATION OF THE ARTICLE

1*	E. C. Papenfuse, A. F. Day, D. W. Jordan, and G. A. Stiverson, eds., A biographical dictionary of the Maryland legislature, 1635-1789, vol. 1, A-
H (1985)

2*	A. C. Land, Colonial Maryland - a history (1981)

3*	R. J. Brugger, Maryland: a middle temperament (1988)

ARCHIVAL DEPOSITS

SUBJECT'S ARCHIVE

None

OTHER IMPORTANT DEPOSITS

None

SOUND ARCHIVES

None

MOVING-PICTURE ARCHIVES

None

LIKENESSES

Unknown

WEALTH AT DEATH

Value of estate or

possessions at death	Owned land in two Maryland counties; holdings in England are unknown.

Source of data	Biographical Dictionary, 1:136

INFORMATION ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR	Date completed:

10/1/01

YOUR NAME FOR PUBLICATION	Edward C. Papenfuse

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Surname	Papenfuse

Full forenames	Edward Charles

Title(s)	Ph.D.

INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION

Post	State Archivist and Commissioner of Land Patents

Institution	Maryland State Archives

ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE

Address	Maryland State Archives

350 Rowe Boulevard

Annapolis, Maryland

Post/zip code	21401	Country	USA

Telephone	(410) 260-6401

E-mail	edp@mdarchives.state.md.us

New DNB	Information sheet

SUBJECT'S NAMES

Main Name	Bladen	Thomas

Variants of main names	none

Alternative names	none

Name as known	none

TITLES

none

BIRTH AND BAPTISM	SEX	Male	x

Birth	1698	Annapolis, Maryland

Source of data and comments:	Biographical Dictionary, 1:135

Baptism	unknown

FATHER

Main name	Bladen	William

Alternative names	none

Titles	none

Birth date	1670	Death date	7 Aug 1718

Occupation	Placeman, lawyer, merchant

MOTHER

Maiden name	Van Swearingen	Anne

Alternative names	none

Titles	none

Birth date	unknown	Death date	unknown

Occupation	none

Source of data and comments:	Biographical Dictionary, 1:135-6

EDUCATION

Dates:	Institution:

?-?	educated in England

Source of data and comments:	Biographical Dictionary, 1:135

R. Sedgwick, History of parliament, 1715-1754, 1:467, states that Bladen studied at Westminster, 1712.

RELIGION

1698-1780	Christian: Church of England

Source of data and comments:	Biographical Dictionary, 1:135

FIRST WIFE

Main name	Janssen	Barbara

Alternative names	none

Titles	none

Birth date	unknown	Death date	unknown

Occupation	none

Relationship	married	x

Date started	14 July 1737	Ended	unknown	by death

Source of data and comments:	Biographical Dictionary, 1:135

RESIDENCE

Date	Address

1698-ca.1712	Annapolis, Maryland

ca.1712-1742	England

1742-1747	Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, Maryland

1747-1780	England

Source of data and comments:	Biographical Dictionary, 1:135

Deed executed in 1720 places Bladen in St. Anne's parish, Westminster; 1742 deed places him in St.James parish, Westminster.

GEOGRAPHICAL/ETHNIC ASSOCIATIONS

By descent	England; London

By association	Maryland; Annapolis

DEATH AND BURIAL

Death	1780	England

Cause of death	unknown

Burial	unknown

Source of data and comments:	Biographical Dictionary, 1:135

Missing data

None not noted above.

ARTICLE CHECK-LIST

Birth, death, burial	x

Parents	x

Spouse/partners	x

IN YOUR ARTICLE TEXT

Double spacing	x

Quotations	x

Thomas Bladen (1698-1780), member of Parliament and colonial governor, was born in 1698 in Annapolis, Maryland, the eldest son of William Bladen (1670- 1718), placeman and lawyer, and his second wife, Anne Van Swearingen, daughter of Garrett and Mary Van Swearingen. Bladen's father, from a prominent Yorkshire family, emigrated to Maryland in 1690; his mother was a native of the colony. Bladen had three younger brothers and two sisters.

Sent by his parents to England for schooling by 1712, Bladen remained in that country until 1742. Little is known of his early career other than his service in Parliament, where he was the member from Steyning between 1727 and 1734 and the member from Ashburton, Devonshire, from 1735 to 1741. On 14 July 1737, Bladen married Barbara Janssen, daughter of Sir Theodore Janssen (ca.1658-1748) and his wife Williamsa Henley (?-1731), daughter of Sir Robert Henley, M.P. Janssen immigrated from France in 1680, was naturalized in 1685, and became a baronet in 1714.

Bladen's sister-in-law, Mary Janssen, was the wife of Charles Calvert, 5th Lord Baltimore, and his brother-in-law, William, was the principal secretary of Maryland from Feb 1733 until his death ca. 1741. The Janssen tie was undoubtedly responsible for Bladen's appointment as governor of Calvert's colony. Commissioned in Apr 1742, Bladen was sworn in Aug 1742 and served until his dismissal by Oct 1746 on the basis of his "tactless and quarrelsome" performance in office (Biographical Dictionary, 1:135). In addition to the governorship, Bladen served as surveyor general of the western shore and chancellor during the same period.

Bladen took up his post with several advantages to his credit: he had been born in Maryland, he was the brother-in-law of the colony's proprietor, his sister Anne's marriage to Benjamin Tasker linked him to a powerful member of the colony's elite, and he replaced Samuel Ogle, whose relationship with the lower house had deteriorated so badly that Bladen could hardly fail to do better. Nevertheless, the impasse between proprietary interests and the anti-proprietary sentiments of the lower house that had made Ogle's tenure so contentious continued unabated under Bladen .

Although largely of symbolic significance, " Bladen 's Folly" served for nearly fifty years as testament to the failure of Bladen 's governorship. Charged by Lord Baltimore with construction of a suitable governor's residence, Bladen elicited an appropriation from the assembly of £4,000 currency for the project. By the time that Bladen 's ambitious house plan exceeded the appropriation, with the second floor and roof still unfinished, the lower house had lost all interest in authorizing the £2,000 needed to complete the work. Instead, they left the unfinished building, soon named " Bladen 's Folly" by the townspeople, as a memorial to the divisions between proprietor and subjects. The lower house might have balked at spending further funds at any time, but Bladen made his request as he and the delegates differed over the extent to which the house could determine the powers of emissaries to be sent to negotiate with the Iroquois. The governor's residence thus became a pawn in the ongoing struggle that pitted the governor as proprietary representative against delegates defending their own and their constituents' interests against the prerogative.

Dismissed from office in October 1746, Bladen remained in the colony until the arrival of his successor, the same Samuel Ogle whom he had replaced five years earlier. On 12 May 1747, Bladen and his family returned to London, where they lived, at least initially, in Westminster. Bladen 's daughter Harriet (?-1821) married William Anne Capel (1732-1799), fourth earl of Essex, on 3 Mar 1767 and his daughter Barbara married Gen. Henry St. John (1738-1818) on 31 Aug 1773. Bladen died, probably in London, in 1780. During his lifetime, Bladen had acquired more than twenty thousand acres of Maryland land, either by inheritance or patent, but had sold most by the time of his death. The State of Maryland confiscated the remainder in 1782.

Edward C. Papenfuse	649 words