author
Sir Henry Arthur Blake
1840–1918
An Irish-born colonial governor whose career carried him from the Royal Irish Constabulary to senior posts across the British Empire, he served in six colonies and is especially remembered for his years in Hong Kong and Ceylon.
1 Audiobook
China
by Sir Henry Arthur Blake
About the author
Born in Limerick in 1840, Sir Henry Arthur Blake began working life in modest circumstances before joining the Royal Irish Constabulary. He later became a resident magistrate in Ireland, where his administrative work helped launch a long imperial career.
Blake went on to serve as governor in several British colonies, including the Bahamas, Newfoundland, Jamaica, Hong Kong, and Ceylon. Sources consistently describe him as an Irish-born British colonial administrator, and his public career stretched across decades of late-Victorian and Edwardian rule.
He died in 1918. Today he is mainly remembered as a prominent figure in the machinery of the British Empire, with biographies often noting both the breadth of his service and the wide geographic range of the posts he held.