Beaver Henry Blacker

Beaver Henry Blacker (31 May 1821 – 11 November 1890) was an Irish Anglican priest and historian. Blacker was resident for many years in England where he was the first editor of Gloucestershire Notes and Queries. He also contributed more than 60 articles to the Dictionary of National Biography.

Early life Beaver Henry Blacker was born in Dublin on 31 May 1821, the eldest son of Latham Blacker, and a grandson of the historian and priest George Miller (1764–1848), author of the 1832 work History, philosophically illustrated. Blacker was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was the three-time recipient of the vice-chancellor's prize for English prose, and from where he received his B.A. degree in 1843, and his M.A. in 1846. In 1855 he married Sophia Eliza O'Reilly in Monkstown, Dublin. There were children from both marriages.

Career Blacker was curate-in-charge of Donnybrook, in County of Dublin, from 1845 to 1856. In 1857 he was appointed to the vicarage of Booterstown, in Dublin; where he oversaw several improvements to St. Philip and St. James Church in Booterstown, and to the rural deanery of South Dublin in 1862. He resigned both positions in 1874 upon his retirement to England. The four volumes contain 1965 articles. Blacker's articles in Notes and Queries, to which he contributed from 1853 to 1890, are signed "Abhba."

Selected publications Two sermons on the duty of national humiliation. 1847. Brief sketches of Booterstown and Donnybrook, in the County of Dublin, with notes and annals. Dublin, 1860–1874. (4 parts with a separate 186 page Annals of the parishes appended.) Monumental inscriptions in the parish church of Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire, with extracts from the parish registers, and some churchyard inscriptions. Privately published, London, 1876. Monumental inscriptions in the parish church of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Privately published, London, 1877.