A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Bland, (Elizabeth)
BLAND, (ELIZABETH) learned in the Hebrew Languages, and particularly skilful in writing it,
Daughter and heiress of Mr. Fisher, of Long-acre, born about the time of the Restoration. She was married, April 1681, to Mr. Nathaniel Bland (then a linen-draper in London, afterwards lord of the manor of Beeston, in the parish of Leeds, Yorkshire, his paternal inheritance, where they resided many years); their children all died in infancy, excepting two. She was instructed in the Hebrew language by the lord Van Helmont, which she understood to such a degree of perfection, that she taught it to her son and daughter.
Among the curiosities of the Royal Society, there is preserved a philactery in Hebrew, of her writing, of which Dr. Grew gives the following account; "It is only a single scroll of parchment, of an inch broad, and fifteen inches long; with four sentences of the law, viz. Exod. viii. from 7 to 11, and from 13 to 19, most curiously written upon it in Hebrew. Serarius, from the Rabbins, saith, that they were written severally upon so many scrolls; and that the Jews do to this day wear them over their foreheads in that manner; so that they are of several sorts or modes, whereof this is one. This was wrote at the request of Mr. Thoresby, and was given by her to that repository."
She was living in 1712; but when she died is uncertain, nor is it now known whether she wrote any thing for the public.