John Thomas Blight

Who was John Thomas Blight?

John Thomas Blight FSA was a Cornish archaeological artist born near Redruth in Cornwall.

His father, Robert, a teacher, moved the family to Penzance and introduced his sons to the study of nature, antiquities and folk lore. John Blight was a natural draughtsman. By the age of 20, Blight had published a book on the antiquities of Penwith and a large collection of drawings.

His expansion of this work, in two volumes, was at first encouraged by Rev. R. S. Hawker and then the cause of a great quarrel. John Blight's second patron, James Halliwell, was similarly unhelpful, never paying him for his vast labour in illustrating Halliwell's projected edition of William Shakespeare's Works.

In the mid-1860s, Blight had a mental breakdown and was incarcerated for the remainder of his life in Bodmin Lunatic Asylum. Blight's recording of Cornish antiquities includes many that no longer exist. His descriptions and illustrations of them provide a most valuable source for archaeologists and local historians.