Bloye studied, and later, taught at the
Birmingham School of Art (his training was interrupted by
World War I, when he served in the
Royal Army Medical Corps from 1915 to 1917; he was eventually succeeded at Birmingham by
John Bridgeman), where his pupils included
Gordon Herickx,
Roy Kitchin,
Raymond Mason,
John Poole and
Ian Walters. He also studied stone-carving and letter cutting under
Eric Gill around 1921. In 1925 Bloye became a member of the
Birmingham Civic Society, having, at about that time, a studio at 111, Golden Hillock Road,
Small Heath, Birmingham. As Birmingham's unofficial civic sculptor he worked on virtually all public commissions including libraries, hospitals and the university. He often carved
bas-relief plaques, typically for
public houses in Birmingham, and decorated a number of buildings by the architect
Holland W. Hobbiss. During the 1920s, he served on the Technical Committee of the Birmingham Civic Society. Bloye became a member of the
Royal British Society of Sculptors: associate (with the honorific suffix ARBS) in 1934, and fellow (FRBS) in 1938. He also won the latter's
Otto Beit Medal. Retiring from the School of Art in 1956 he moved to
Solihull. He died in
Arezzo, Italy in 1975. In December 2010, a
blue plaque was unveiled at
City College, on the site of his former studio. As of January 2010, Birmingham City Council are working on the restoration of Bloye's statue of
Pan at
Aston Hall. The statue's head is missing, and they have appealed for old photographs to assist in its reconstruction. == Royal Birmingham Society of Artists ==