Lieutenant General Humphrey Bland (1686 – 8 May 1763) was an Irish professional soldier, whose career in the British Army began in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession and ended in 1756.

[citation needed] During the War of the Spanish Succession in March 1704, Bland was commissioned as an ensign; Parliamentary accounts show he was Town Major or military administrator for Tortosa, in Catalonia from May to October 1707.

A practical and clearly written work summarising the basic duties of regimental officers, it became the most successful and widely used English drill book of the 18th century and frequently reprinted.

[1] In early 1747, Bland returned to Europe, where he took part in the Battle of Lauffeld in July, a British defeat saved from disaster by a series of courageous cavalry charges.

In September, he replaced the Earl of Albemarle as Commander-in-Chief, Scotland; as an Irish Presbyterian, Bland had little sympathy for the largely Episcopalian Jacobites or Highland culture in general.

He worked closely with Lord Milton, a senior Scottish judge who advocated reforming the land tenure system to reduce the power of clan chiefs and introducing industry to improve the general economy.

'[1] He was appointed Governor of Gibraltar in 1749, a position that did not require residence and was considered a military backwater; however, he asked to be relieved of command in Scotland and moved there in 1751 due to ill-health.

When Sir Philip Honywood died in 1752, he succeeded him as colonel of his former regiment, the 1st King's Dragoon Guards and also given the sinecure appointment of Governor of Edinburgh Castle.