Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bloomfield, John Arthur Douglas
BLOOMFIELD, JOHN ARTHUR DOUGLAS, second Baron Bloomfield (1802–1879), diplomatist, was the son of Benjamin Bloomfield. created, 14 May 1825, Baron Bloomfield in the peerage of Ireland [see Bloomfield, Benjamin]. He was born 12 Nov. 1802, and at the early age of sixteen became an attache to the embassy at Vienna. Throughout his life he remained in the diplomatic service, and his history consists of little more than a list of the places where he served his countiy. He was paid attache at Lisbon, October 1824; secretary of legation at Stuttgard, December 1825, and at Stockholm, September 1826; secretary of embassy at St. Petersburg, June 1889; envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to that court, 3 April 1844; removed in the same capacity to Berlin, 28 April 1851; made ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Emperor of Austria, 22 Nov. 1860, but resigned 28 Oct. 1871, when he retired on a pension and was created a peer of the United Kingdom. Previously to this date he had succeeded his father as second Baron Bloomfield in the peerage of Ireland, 15 Aug. 1846, had been made a C.B. 1848, K.C.B. 1851, G.C.B. 3 Sept. 1858, and a privy councillor 17 Dec. 1860. He died at his residence, Giamhaltha, Newport, co. Tipperary, 17 Aug. 1879. He married, 4 Sept. 1845, the Hon. Georgiana, sixteenth and youngest child of Thomas Henry Liddell, first Baron Ravensworth. She was born at 51 Portland Place, London, 13 April 1822, was maid of honour to the queen from December 1841 to July 1845, and in the month after her marriage accompanied her husband to Russia. Her ‘Reminiscences’ of the state of society at the various courts where she resided is a work of much interest.
[Reminiscences of Court and Diplomatic Life, by Georgiana, Baroness Bloomfield (1883); Memoirs of Sir William Knighton (1838), ii. 130-1; Dod’s Peerage, 1879; E. Walford’s Tales of our Great Families (1877), i. 298-304.]