– 1712), who was granted the lands of Corbally, Kilmoylan, County Galway, on 20 December 1697, and wife Magdeline Martin, the Blakes.

[2] Blake started out as a clerk in the Bank of Ireland but lasted only 18 months before resigning and commencing a cadetship in the Irish Constabulary in 1857.

In 1876, he was appointed Resident Magistrate to Tuam, an especially disturbed district in the west of Ireland, where he was noted as judicious and active.

During his tenure, Blake sent in colonial administrators to the New Territories to assert control over the local punti clans.

The clans resisted the British takeover of the New Territories, resulting in the outbreak of the Six-Day War; a largely Indian force under the command of British Army officer William Gascoigne managed to defeat the punti clans, with Blake adopting an amiable co-operation policy to prevent further trouble and allowed them to retain traditional laws and customs in regards to land inheritance, land usage and marriage.

[7] Blake was appointed Governor of Ceylon at the end of his tenure in Hong Kong in 1903, and he served in that capacity until 1907.

A freshly retired Blake impressed George Morrison with his bitterness at not landing a Privy Council sinecure in gratitude for his 41 years' public service.

The Bauhinia blakeana, discovered in Hong Kong around 1880, was named after him (Blake shared his wife's interest in botany).