Bocland received his surname from the manor of Buckland, near Faringdon, in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), of which he was tenant under the monastery of Abingdon.
Before the death of William Rufus, he was already High Sheriff of Berkshire and he is stated in the Abingdon Chronicle to have been one of the persons who profited by the unjust transactions of Modbert, whom the king appointed to administer the affairs of the monastery in the interest of the royal revenues, during the period when the office of abbot was vacant.
The Abingdon Chronicle also speaks of Hugh as 'justiciarius publicarum compellationum;' the precise import of this expression, however, is not clear.
The statement in Foss's 'Lives of the Judges' that he was canon of St Paul's is probably erroneous, although his name occurs (without date or reference to any authority) in the list of prebendaries of Harleston in Newcourt's 'Repertorium,' i.
Another Hugh de Bocland, who may have been a grandson of the subject of this article, was High Sheriff of Berkshire from 1170 to 1176, and was one of the itinerant justices in 1173 and 1174.