Births on July 23

Francis Blomefield, English historian and author (d. 1752)

Rev. Francis Blomefield (23 July 1705 – 16 January 1752), FSA, Rector of Fersfield in Norfolk, was an English antiquarian who wrote a county history of Norfolk: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk. It includes detailed accounts of the City of Norwich, the Borough of Thetford and all parishes in the southernmost Hundreds of Norfolk, but he died before completing it. This was done by a friend, Rev. Charles Parkin. The Norfolk historian Walter Rye related that although no portrait of him was known to exist, Blomefield closely resembled the astronomer John Flamsteed, whose portrait was used to depict Blomefield on the frontispiece of one of his volumes. His history of Norfolk was reissued in London in 11 volumes by William Miller in 1805–1810, the last seven being by Parkin.