BLAND, Ruth
Ruth Bland was born at Providence Lodge, London Road, Beccles, Suffolk in 1867, daughter of Samuel King Bland (1822-20 August 1908), a Baptist minister, and his third wife, Elizabeth Hazeldine née Lawrence (1829-1905), who married at Edmonton, London in 1857 and both died at Ipswich. Samuel's first wife was Sarah Nash Higgs, whom he married at Newington in 1845 and who died on 2 December 1853, aged 28, his second wife was Deborah Carr, whom he married at St Neots in 1855 and she died the following year. By 1881, the family had moved to 'Highlands', Warrington Road, Ipswich and were still there in 1891 with Ruth, a 23-year-old 'art class teacher of drawing and painting'. Ruth studied at the Ipswich School of Science and Art passing her freehand examination in 1884 and won several prizes 1888-1894 including the first prize for a 'Painting the Human Figure in Oil or Watercolour'. A member of Ipswich Art Club 1890-1896, exhibiting 37 works including several oil paintings from Warrington Road, in 1890 'A Study on the Gipping'; in 1891 'Hollesley Marshes', 'Sunshine and Shadows', 'A Quiet Nook' and 'Sketch of Hollesley Bay', in 1893 'A Misty Morning, Bexley Heath', 'Sketch near Norwich', 'On the Orwell, Low Tide' and 'Back Premises', in 1895 'Autumn', 'A Foreground Study', 'Bramble Leaves', 'Walberswick', 'Violets', 'Syringa' and 'Brook Hill, Foxhall' and she was a regular exhibitor, including 13 pictures in 1896. She married at St Mary Stoke Church, Ipswich on 27 August 1896, William Percy Thomson (28 November 1867-4 December 1948), a solicitor, of Kendal, Westmorland. who in 1898 was a volunteer in the 1st Herefordshire Volunteer Rifles. In 1911, she was living at Tea View House, Portscatho, Cornwall with two of her surviving three children, 13-year-old Hazeldine Mary, born Hitchin, Hertfordshire 17 October 1897 and 4-year-old Paul Gardner, born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Ruth Thomson died at Erpingham, Norfolk in 1933, aged 65.