Returning from France in 1887, Blackader studied at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he was regarded as a generally promising pupil; his marks were highest in administrative and academic subjects, but lower in drawing and physical education.
Blackader and his wife spent a year and a half in Bermuda, where their daughter Dorothy was born in April 1889, and moved to Nova Scotia when the battalion was transferred there in 1890; shortly after arrival, on 21 March, he was promoted to lieutenant on 21 March.