Bullock Wm

Wm Bullock (bap. 1773, d. 1849), naturalist and antiquary, was baptized on 8 May 1773 at St Andrew's Church, Plymouth, Devon, the son of James Bullock and his second wife, Sibylla, of Bristol, the owners of a travelling waxworks. He had an older half-brother, James, from his father's first marriage, and three brothers, Joseph (bap. 1781), Charles (bap. 1783), later an artist, and George Bullock, sculptor and cabinet-maker; a sister, Mary Ann, was born in 1784/5. The family probably came from Birmingham, where Sibylla and George were in business at the turn of the century. By 1795 William was in Liverpool, where he lived at Church Street. In 1801, while trading as a jeweller and goldsmith, he published a descriptive catalogue of a museum which he had opened at 24 Lord Street in 1795. It contained works of art, armoury, objects of natural history, and curiosities brought by Captain Cook from the south seas partially acquired from Richard Greene's Lichfield Museum and Sir Ashton Lever's collections. In 1809 Bullock moved to London, where his collection, still called the Liverpool Museum at 22 Piccadilly became extremely popular, especially after 1812 when placed in his newly erected Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. Further enlarged from his own travels with Roman displays and memorabilia of Napoleon, Bullock's London Museum remained extremely popular and profitable until it was disposed of by auction in 1819. Altick suggests that Bullock was the first person in England to arrange a museum collection systematically and scientifically with imaginative backcloths suggesting appropriate settings for the objects (Altick, 237). Leask, too, comments on this, while describing Bullock as 'Pickwickean' (Leask, 308) and pointing to Bullock's showmanship and the extent to which this competed with ideas of display for scientific purposes. Pearce also draws attention to his use of exotic people as exhibits, whether Sami (Lapps) with their reindeer in his earlier displays or a Mexican Indian in his later exhibition, as a means of evoking ‘sympathetic understanding’ on the part of visitors. After selling his curiosities Bullock continued to let the Egyptian Hall for other exhibitions, notably Giovanni Battista Belzoni's Egyptian exhibition of 1821.

In December 1822 Bullock went to Mexico with William Bullock, his son from his first marriage to Ann (d. 1801), with whom he also had a daughter, Anne Elizabeth (1800–1861). The Mexican government helped his research and ceded to him the silver mine of Del Bada near Temascaltepec. He was one of the first British travellers to visit Mexico, which was newly accessible to outsiders since its independence from Spain in 1821, and from his tour he brought home many valuable artefacts. These included plaster casts of the Aztec calendar stone known as ‘Montezuma's watch’, and of the ‘sacrificial stone’, thought to have been the Stone of Tizoc; plaster models of the pyramids at Teotihuacán; manuscripts and hieroglyphic documents sent to Montezuma to inform him of the transactions of the Spaniards; and a map of Tenochtitlan, said to be the original Aztec map made on the order of Montezuma for Cortés to send to the king of Spain. After his return to England in November 1823, to considerable acclaim and scientific interest Bullock opened in the Egyptian Hall in April 1824 an exhibition on ancient and modern Mexico, which contained his collection of ancient artefacts and casts, and illustrated the scenery, industry, art, minerals, and natural history of Mexico. Following his earlier practice he also displayed a live Indian (José Cayetano Ponce de Leon). His skill and imagination in displaying his objects in eye-catching but intelligent ways were again in evidence. Catalogues to the exhibition were published in 1824 and 1825. In 1824 he published Six Months' Residence and Travels in Mexico, which, though parts were derivative, proved extremely popular, being translated into French and Dutch and running to subsequent English editions. There was a facsimile edition in 1971 that included glowing descriptions of the commercial opportunities that Mexico offered British manufacturers and agriculturalists, as well as advice on the preservation of health in tropical climates. The exhibition, catalogues, and book played a highly influential role in presenting and interpreting Mexican natural history and culture to a British audience.

Having disposed of his Mexican collection, partly to the British Museum, and having sold his lease of the Egyptian Hall, in 1825 Bullock again visited Mexico with his second wife, Catherine Tarleton (d. 1863), and their daughter Sybylla (1805–1850). Catherine's family were Roman Catholics, as was Bullock by the time of his death if not earlier. Their party included miners who were to extract silver from Bullock's mine and, as Bullock's servant, the Indian who had been on display in the exhibition. The mine, however, proved disastrously unprofitable. Bullock was back in Britain from 1827 to 1828 and then he left for the USA. He recorded his tour in Sketch of a Journey through the Western States of North America (1827) in which he and others praised Cincinnati, on the outskirts of which Bullock had bought The Elms, later Elmwood, an estate of some 1000 acres. He had commissioned the London architect John B. Papworth to draw a plan, included in the book, for a new town called Hygeia after the Greek goddess of health on this spot which was much later to become the site of Ludlow, Kentucky. The town was to contain cultural buildings, areas for agriculture and horticulture, houses for various classes of person, and a spacious house for Bullock, and who encouraged others 'of limited property' to follow him. Like so many other similar schemes, Bullock's failed, but the town plan and proposal were still being cited in American works on town planning in the late twentieth century.

In 1830 Bullock sold Elmwood Hall, his new home on which he had spent much money, and most of his land, to move to a small cottage on the remaining land. In 1836 he sold this and returned to England by 1840. He died at 14 Halsey Terrace, Chelsea, on 7 March 1849 and was buried at St Mary's Church, Chelsea, on 16 March. He was a fellow of the Linnean, Horticultural, Geological, Wernerian, and other learned societies, and published several pamphlets on natural history. From the latter part of the twentieth century there has been considerable research on William Bullock; reflecting his own breadth of interests and geographical range, this has been published in diverse journals and in several countries. Michael Costeloe gives the most exhaustive and reliable biographical details.

xxxxx

BULLOCK, WILLIAM (fl. 1827), Bullock, William

weller and goldsmith by training, later turned antiquarian and museum proprietor. Brother of the furniture designer George Bullock. Early career in Liverpool, where opened a museum in 1795.Moved it to London in 1809 at 22 Piccadilly. This was initially called the Liverpool Museum, but in 1812 renamed the Egyptian Hall Museum after he rehoused it in his newly erected Egyptian Hall (also at 22 Piccadilly).This was designed by Peter Frederick Robinson (1776-1858) to resemble an Egyptian temple. In 1819 sold his collection, but retained the Hall, which was let out for other displays (including one by Belzoni).BIG success at the show was Napoleon’s battle wagon captured at Waterloo

Between December 1822 and November 1823 he visited Mexico, and brought back one of the first collections from that country, which he displayed in the Egyptian Hall with a catalogue the following year. After selling much of the contents to the BM, he went to Mexico again in 1827, continuing on to Cincinnati where he bought an estate (described in Fanny Trollope's 'Domestic manners of the Americans') and later in 1828 founded a new town at Ludlow Kentucky, designed by J.B.Papworth. This failed, and he returned to England in 1836, where he is known still to have been alive in 1843.

was a traveller, naturalist, and antiquarian of some repute at the beginning of the present century. In 1808, while carrying on the business of jeweller and goldsmith in Liverpool, he published a descriptive catalogue of a museum which he had opened in that city, consisting of works of art, armoury, objects of natural history, besides many curiosities brought by Captain Cook from the South Seas. About 1812 Bullock removed to London, and his collection soon attracted more notice, when placed in the newly erected Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. Enlarged from various sources, from the Lichfield Museum, from that of Sir Ashton Lever, and from the results of Bullock's own travels and researches, it became one of the most popular exhibitions of the metropolis. It existed under the name of the London Museum till 1819, when it was disposed of by auction. In 1822 he went to Mexico, where he was well received by the authorities, aided in his researches, and received from the Mexican government a gift of the silver mine of Del Bada near Themascaltpec. From this tour Bullock brought home many valuable curiosities, among others casts of the great calendar, commonly known as Montezuma's watch, and of the sacrificial stone, models of the pyramids of San Juan de Teokbuacan, manuscripts and hieroglyphic pictures sent to Montezuma to inform him of the transactions of the Spaniards, and the original map of the ancient city, made by order of the emperor for Cortez, and intended to have been transmitted to the king of Spain. On his return to England he opened in the Egyptian Hall an exiibition called Modern Mexico, containing, besides the above-mentioned curiosities, models of the scenery, specimens of the industry and art, the minerals and natural history of that country. In 1821 he published ‘Six Months' Residence and Travels in Mexico, containing remarks on the present state of New Spain.’ At the end of the volume Bullock added a letter from his medical adviser on the preservation of health in tropical climates.

In 1827 he was again in Mexico, returning by way of the States. He immediately gave the English public the benefit of his tour in his ‘Sketch of a Journey through the Western States of North America’ (1827). In this volume are inserted extracts from various authors on the condition of Cincinnati in 1826, the obiect being to entice others to join him in his proposed emigration. In his notice to the public the author says he was so pleased with the country and neighbourhood of Cincinnati, and convinced of its eligibility for people of limited property, that he had purchased a house and estate there, to which he was about to retire with his wife and family. The book contains a plan of a proposed ‘town of retirement,’ Hygeia. (sold to Israel L. < became L., Ky. )

Bullock was a fellow of the Linnean, Horticultural, Geological, Wernerian, and other learned societies. Besides the two books mentioned above, he wrote ‘A Concise and Easy Method of preserving Subjects of Natural History,’ 1817. A paper, which he read before the Linnean Society, 17 Nov. 1812, on ‘Four rare Species of British Birds,’ is published in the ‘Transactions’ of that society.

xxxx

Sources

R. D. Altick, The shows of London (1978)

F. Trollope, Domestic manners of the Americans (1832)

C. Lancaster, ‘The Egyptian Hall and Mrs Trollope's Bazaar’, Magazine of Art (March 1950), 94–112

S. Giles and J. Stewart, eds., The art of ruins (1989)

L. Boturini Benaduci, Idea de una nueva historia general de la America septentrional (Madrid, 1746)

GM, 1st ser., 94/2 (1824), 69–70

F. F. Berdan and P. R. Anawalt, eds., The Codex Mendoza, 4 vols. (1992)

J. W. Reps, The making of urban America (1965)

J. B. Papworth, Plan of a proposed rural town (1965)

N. Leask, Curiosity and the aesthetics of travel writing, 1770–1840 (2002)

M. P. Costeloe, ‘William Bullock and the Mexican connection’, Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos, 22/2 (summer 2006), 275–309

W. Jerdan, Men I have known (1866)

E. P. Alexander, ‘William Bullock: little remembered museologist and showman’, The Curator, 28 (1985), 117–47

W. Papworth, ‘The Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly and Mr William Bullock’, N&Q, 5th ser. (17 April 1875), 284–5, 302–3

J. Edmondon, ‘The regency exhibitionists: a fresh look at the Bullocks’, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, 5/1 (1989), 17–26

J. M. Sweet, ‘William Bullock's collection and the University of Edinburgh, 1819’, Annals of Science, 26 (1970), 23–32

S. Pearce, ‘William Bullock: collections and exhibitions at the Egyptian Hall, 1816–25’, Journal of the History of Collections, 20 (2008), 17–35

M. P. Costeloe, William Bullock, connoisseur and virtuoso of the Egyptian Hall: Piccadilly to Mexico, 1773–1849 (2008)

DNB

private information (2004) [John Ford; Hugh Torrens]; (2009) [M. P. Costeloe]; (2012) [M. Osborn]

will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/2092

d. cert.

Archives

U. Edin. L., corresp. and papers relating to his natural history collection

Wellcome L., papers

Likenesses

engraving, repro. in Altick, Shows of London

View the article for this person in the Dictionary of National Biography archive edition.

External resources

Bibliography of British and Irish History