"[2] Bland wanted to attend the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and become an army officer, but there was not enough money after his father's death, so he went to work as a bank clerk.

[2] With Nesbit, Bland produced three children: Paul (1880–1940), Iris (1881-1965) and Fabian (1885–1900), who died aged 15 from a tonsil operation performed at home.

[5] Bland met Alice Hoatson, a friend of Nesbit, after getting her pregnant in 1886: she became their housekeeper and his mistress for the rest of his life.

After Alice Hoatson joined the Bland household, "he proceeded to father children on both her and Edith regularly.

On 4 January 1884, Bland chaired the first meeting and was subsequently elected to be the Society's honorary treasurer, a position he held until his sight failed in 1911.

[11] Nevertheless, "he sometimes disagreed with others in the group, and over the years he had been repeatedly outmanoeuvred and overruled by Shaw, Sidney Webb, and their supporters.

It is just when the storm winds blow and the clouds lour and the horizon is at its blackest that the ideal of the Socialist shines with divinest radiance, bidding him trust the inspiration of the poet rather than heed the mutterings of the perplexed politician.

George Bernard Shaw described how Bland intimidated other Fabian Society members, describing him asa man of fierce Norman exterior and huge physical strength... never seen without an irreproachable frock coat, tall hat, and a single eyeglass which infuriated everybody.

He was pugnacious, powerful, a skilled pugilist, and had a shrill, thin voice reportedly like the scream of an eagle.

[2] "The Blands' socialist principles and sympathy for the oppressed never prevented them from enjoying a thoroughly bourgeois affluence, reflected in their increasingly grand houses [and] growing numbers of servants.

He wrote in December 1899 that defeat in Africa would mean "starvation in every city of Great Britain", while war would "overcome national flabbiness and restore the manhood of the British people.

"[2] Bland's support of Britain's imperial interests began to make him unpopular with his fellow socialists.

[2] Critics praise Bland as having been "the most forceful and influential columnist of his day"[19] who reached "almost the high-water mark of English journalism."

Bland's job as a columnist gave him "a secure income for the rest of his life" and Nesbit had become a successful writer.

Well Hall was their finest home and it served "a salon for figures in the literary political world.

He was dictating to her at Well Hall 14 April 1914, when he suddenly felt giddy, lowered himself to the floor, and died of a heart attack in her arms.

Regarding Bland's legacy, Claire Tomalin has written thatBland is one of the minor enigmas of literary history in that everything reported of him makes him sound repellent, yet he was admired, even adored, by many intelligent men and women...

In mid-life, he joined the Catholic Church, a further cosmetic touch to his old-world image, but without modifying his behaviour or even bothering to attend more than the statutory minimum of masses.