Herbert Joseph Weld Blundell (1852 – 5 February 1935) was an English traveller in Africa,

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, philanthropist and

yachtsman A yacht is a sailing or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a , as opposed to a , such a pleasu ...

. He shortened his surname from Weld Blundell to Weld, in 1924.

Life to 1922

He was educated at

Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Catholic Church, Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst, Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. Th ...

. He travelled to

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

in 1891, then for a decade 1894 to 1905 in North Africa and East Africa. He was a correspondent for the ''Morning Post'' during the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

. Expeditions included *1891-2

Persepolis , native_name_lang = , alternate_name = , image = Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis. , map = , map_type ...

, with Lorenzo Giuntini, making casts of the

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

s *1894-5 Libya and

Cyrenaica Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή ��παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...

, creating a photographic record *1898 Abyssinia Expedition with

Lord Lovat Lord Lovat ( gd, Mac Shimidh) is a title of the rank Lord of Parliament in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1458 for Hugh Fraser, 1st Lord Lovat, Hugh Fraser by summoning him to the Scottish Parliament as Lord Fraser of Lovat, altho ...

and

Reginald Koettlitz Reginald Koettlitz (1860–1916) was a British physician and polar explorer. He participated in the Jackson–Harmsworth expedition to Franz Josef Land and in the Discovery Expedition to Antarctica. Early life Reginald Koettlitz was born on 23 ...

Richard Snailham
" Europeans on the Blue Nile Region"

Anglo-Ethiopian Society The Anglo-Ethiopian Society's stated goal is "to foster knowledge of Ethiopian culture, history and way of life and to encourage friendship between the British and Ethiopian peoples." The society was founded in November 1948 by Professor Norman Be ...

, 1992 (accessed 29 June 2009) *1904-5 Around

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...

*1922 Weld Blundell Expedition, found the

Weld-Blundell Prism The Weld-Blundell Prism ("WB", dated 1800 BCE) is a clay, cuneiform inscribed vertical prism housed in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The prism was found in a 1922 expedition in Larsa in modern-day Iraq by British archaeologist Herbert Weld Blun ...

, now in the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

In 1921–1922 he presented the Weld Blundell Collection to the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

From 1923

He backed a 1923 expedition to the Yemen, and the Field Museum-Oxford University Joint Expedition to Mesopotamia (

Kish Kish may refer to: Geography * Gishi, Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, a village also called Kish * Kiş, Shaki, Azerbaijan, a village and municipality also spelled Kish * Kish Island, an Iranian island and a city in the Persian Gulf * Kish, Iran, ...

). In 1923 he married Theodora Mclaren-Morrison, who died in 1928. In the same year he inherited Lulworth Castle, from a cousin, Reginald Joseph Weld Blundell. In 1928, on the death of Reginald's brother Humphrey, he inherited the rest of the

Lulworth Estate The Lulworth Estate is a country estate located in central south Dorset, England. Its most notable landscape feature is a five-mile stretch of coastline on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site, including Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove. ...

, of the

Weld-Blundell family The Weld family are a cadet branch, arisen in 1843, of the English Welds of Lulworth. It is an old gentry family which claims descent from Eadric the Wild and is related to other Weld branches in several parts of the United Kingdom, notably fro ...

. In 1923 he started campaigning against Army use of

Bindon Hill Bindon Hill is an extensive Iron Age earthwork enclosing a coastal hill area on the Jurassic Coast near Lulworth Cove in Dorset, England, about west of Swanage, about south west of Wareham, and about south east of Dorchester. It is within ...

as a firing range, the beginning of the long conflict that centred on the fate of

Tyneham Tyneham is a ghost village abandoned in 1943 and former civil parish, now in the civil parish of Steeple with Tyneham, in south Dorset, England, near Lulworth on the Isle of Purbeck. In 2001 the civil parish had a population of 0. The civil ...

and other parts of the Lulworth Estate. From 1924 he owned a large

yacht A yacht is a sailing or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a , as opposed to a , such a pleasu ...

, S/Y ''

Lulworth Lulworth is the popular name for an area on the coast of Dorset, South West England notable for its castle and cove. However, there is no actual place or feature called simply "Lulworth", the villages are East and West Lulworth and the coastal f ...

''. It was a prominent racing craft of its time, competing 28 times in 1925 and always placing in the first three. In 1929, Weld's intention to sell two family heirlooms, the

Luttrell Psalter The Luttrell Psalter (British Library, Add MS 42130) is an illuminated manuscript, illuminated psalter commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (1276–1345), lord of the manor of Irnham in Lincolnshire, written and illustrated on parchment ''circa'' ...

and the Bedford Book of Hours at

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

came up against a legal issue, when just three days before these famous illuminated manuscripts were due to go under the hammer, it was discovered by

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

lawyers that they and all the heirlooms and ' chattels' in Lulworth Castle were apparently the property of Mrs Mary Angela Noyes, née Mayne, wife of the poet

Alfred Noyes Alfred Noyes CBE (16 September 188025 June 1958) was an English poet, short-story writer and playwright. Early years Noyes was born in Wolverhampton, England the son of Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes. When he was four, the family moved to Ab ...

, earlier married to Richard Shireburn Weld-Blundell, the Weld-Blundell heir who had been killed in 1916. Weld went to court, but his appeal was rejected only a few hours before the sale. The British Museum then purchased both manuscripts from Mrs Noyes with a loan from

John Pierpont Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became kno ...

. Later in 1929 Lulworth Castle was badly damaged by fire, and some of the disputed heirlooms were burned.Wright, p. 116, pp. 119–120. Upon his death, the Lulworth Estate passed to a cousin, Joseph William Weld, subsequently a

Lord Lieutenant of Dorset The Office of the Lord Lieutenant was created during the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), taking over the military duties of the Sheriff of Dorset and control of the military forces of the Crown. From 1569, there was provision for the appointment o ...

Works

*''The Royal Chronicle of Abyssinia, 1769–1840, with Translation and Notes'' (1922)

References

* Patrick Wright (2002 revision), ''The Village That Died for England''

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weld Blundell, Herbert 1852 births 1935 deaths English archaeologists People educated at Stonyhurst College 19th-century archaeologists 20th-century archaeologists British war correspondents War correspondents of the Second Boer War

Herbert Weld Blundell Herbert Joseph Weld Blundell (1852 – 5 February 1935) was an English traveller in Africa, archaeologist, philanthropist and yachtsman. He shortened his surname from Weld Blundell to Weld, in 1924. Life to 1922 He was educated at Stonyhurst C ...