A surgeon by profession, he arrived in Australia as a convict but played an important role in the early years of Australian healthcare, education and science.

He was sentenced to penal transportation, initially to Van Diemen's Land and then to New South Wales, where he was assigned to work at the Castle Hill Lunatic Asylum.

Bland became politically active shortly after his arrival in New South Wales and in 1818 was sentenced to a year in prison for libelling Governor Lachlan Macquarie.

He aligned himself with other emancipists and supported William Wentworth's calls for representative government and expanded civil rights for ex-convicts.

His brother Robert was a clergyman, poet and teacher at Harrow School, while his sister Sophia married John Benjamin Heath, a governor of the Bank of England.

[5] On 7 April 1813, Bland shot and killed Robert Case, the ship's purser on Hesper, in a duel on Cross Island in Bombay Harbour.

According to contemporary accounts in the Bombay Courier, Case initially challenged Randall to a duel, which Bland tried to prevent.

[6] Bland and the three other surviving participants in the duel were charged with "wilful murder" and gaoled by the Recorder's Court of the Bombay Presidency.

[7] Bland mounted a defence of honour, stating that to refuse Case's challenge would have "doomed me to a punishment worse than death" and that he had no intention of actually killing the man.

[8] An account of Davey's actions was passed on to Lachlan Macquarie, the newly appointed governor of New South Wales, who stated that he had committed a "very great irregularity" in receiving the convicts.

He was almost immediately granted his freedom by Macquarie and in September 1814 was appointed as the medical superintendent of the Castle Hill Lunatic Asylum.

Bland's handwriting was recognised and on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 September 1818 he was in court and convicted of libel fined £50/-/-d and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment which he served at Parramatta.

As a result, the Australian Patriotic Association was formed in 1835 by William Wentworth; Bland was its "chairman of the committee of correspondence" (i.e., secretary).

[15] He may have been inspired by reports on ballooning carried in The Sydney Morning Herald, which drew attention to the problem of managing ascents and descents and navigating through the air.

[16] Bland sought to put forward a solution to the problem of managing ascents and descents that did not require releasing gas or jettisoning ballast.

He proposed that the gondola or "car" be fitted with "sliding ballast", which the operator would move to the front, back or centre of the airship to effect an ascent or descent.

[16] In June 1859, Bland gave an address to the Royal Society of New South Wales titled "On Atmotic Navigation", which was one of the first lectures on aviation in Australia.

In 1866, Bland sent copies of his pamphlet to George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, the president of the newly formed Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, requesting that the Ship be given a trial.

[21] Only a few months into his first marriage, Bland discovered that his wife had committed adultery with Richard Drake, an East India Company officer.

[23] After separating from his first wife, Bland lived in a two-storey house in Pitt Street, retaining several convict servants and occasionally taking on boarders.

[30] It predominantly houses private medical practices such as Physiotherapy Clinic mySydneyPhysio,[31] addressing the health needs of Sydney's CBD workforce.