Henry Francis Blanford

Henry Francis Blanford (sometimes spelt Blandford

Blanford was born at 27 Bouverie street, Whitefriars, London where his father ran a workshop for gilt mouldings. His early schooling was at Brighton and Brussels. For a while he studied design at Somerset House and Marlborough House before joining the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington in 1851 and studied under Henry De la Beche, Warington Wilkinson Smyth and John Percy. He was the recipient of a scholarship from the Duke of Cornwall. He then studied for a year at the Bergakademie Freiberg (Mining Academy of Freiberg). Blanford's prediction of drought was noticed by the Australian meteorologist Charles Todd and when another drought occurred in 1888, he realised that there was a synchrony in the events. This was examined later by Gilbert Walker who recognised the global scale of weather phenomena.

He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1862, Fellow of the Royal Society in 1880 and was a president of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1884–85. He was buried in a family vault on the western side of Highgate Cemetery.

Publications Indian Meteorologist's Vade Mecum (1876) Climates and Weather of India (1889)