The Bullock family traces its roots to the 12th century, living primarily in the southern English counties of Berkshire and Essex from the mid-Norman period to the late Victorian era.
The Bullock family traces its roots to the 12th century, living primarily in the southern English counties of Berkshire and Essex from the mid-Norman period to the late Victorian era.
The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon "bulluca", meaning a young bull, and is linked to the old Anglian and Norman Christian name Osmund. It represents one of the earliest instances of an English hereditary surname that was a purely personal nickname in origin. [1] [2]
The first heraldic record in Berkshire, [3] 1532, gives the arms of Thomas Bullock of Aborfield as:
In Harvey's Visitation to Berkshire of 1565–1566, the crest had been changed to:
The confirmation of arms of Sir Edward Bullock in 1602 changed the chevron from argent to ermine, and the crest became:
The motto reads: nil conscire sibi – to have nothing on one's conscience.
Notable members of the family include:
The earliest recorded member of the family is Osemundus Bulloc at Arborfield, Berkshire, who is found in the Pipe Rolls of Berkshire in 1166. The Herald's visitations of the 15th century include the name of his son, Richard. These and later visitations show the descent in an unbroken line to Sir Edward Bullock of Faulkbourne, Essex, who died in 1644. [1]
Richard's son, Gilbert, made formal declaration in 1250 of his holding of the manor of Sunning from the Bishop of Salisbury.
Robert Bullock of Aborfield was Knight of the Shire for Berkshire (1382) and Sheriff for the Counties of Berkshire and Oxfordshire in 1384 and 1392 under Richard II. In 1394 he was Commissioner of the Peace for Berkshire. He had no male issue, so the Aborfield estates passed to Thomas Bullock, the grandson of his uncle Gilbert.
Another Thomas was Gentleman Usher Extraordinary to Henry VIII in 1516 and one of the Commissioners for Berkshire collecting the subsidy for Henry VIII in 1523. In 1544 he supplied archers, billmen and horses for the war with France, leading to the inclusion of seven bills originally in the family crest. Thomas's uncle, Hugh "with ye Brazen Hand", left Aberfield to found the family branch in Siddenhall (Sidnall), (Shropshire). [1]
Thomas Bullock (1546-1595) was High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1581 and in the Commission of the Peace in 1592. He was the last Bullock of Arborfield, being obliged to sell the estates (the manors of Arberfield and Barkham, situated in the towns, villages and fields of Arberfeld, Barkham, Hurst, Ockingham, Shingfield and Erley) owing to accumulated debts. His uncle, George, refused to hand over the deeds. Thomas was forced by the family to produce a deed of entail and, having received the title deeds, went on to repudiate the deed. His brother and heir, William, litigated through the Court of Chancery and the Star Chamber but the sale was confirmed. [1]
Thomas died in 1595, William, with the support of tenants, entered into possession in serious contempt of court, resulting in him being thrown into Fleet Prison. William continued actions to recover the estate in the Queen's Bench, then the Court of Common Pleas, and later petitioned the Elizabeth I, the Privy Council and the Lord Keeper, but in vain. [1] [2]
William, released from prison and now of Stratfield Mortimer, married well, his third wife being Elizabeth Bellet of Morton in Essex, restoring the family fortunes. [1]
His son, John, moved the family to the Manor House of Mulsham, at Great Wigborough in Essex, where he purchased estates at Loftes in Great and Little Totham. These estates remained in the family until the death of Edward Bullock of Faulkbourne in 1705. [1]
Sir Edward Bullock (c. 1580-1644) was the elder son of Edward Bullock of Wigborough and Loftes in Great Totham. He was knighted by King James I and was a Royalist during the English Civil War. He acquired the manor of Faulkbourne in 1637 and made substantial alterations to Faulkbourne Hall, which remained the family seat until 1897. [1] [2] [5] He married Elizabeth Wylde and is buried at the St Germanus' Church, Faulkbourne.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the family thrived through a series of marriages to wealthy heiresses. [2]
Edward Bullock (1663–1705) was lord of seven manors and sat as a Member of Parliament for the County of Essex in 1698 and later for the Borough of Colchester in 1703. [6]
He became Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Essex and High Sheriff of Essex in 1696 and 1703. Through his marriage to Elizabeth, elder daughter of Sir Mark Guyon of Coggeshall, large estates at Coggeshall, Maplestead and Finchingfield were inherited by the family. After Elizabeth's death, he married Mary, the daughter of Sir Josiah Child of Wanstead. Sir Josiah thoroughly opposed the marriage and left his daughter a mere £5 in his will "and no more because she hath married not only without my consent but expressly against my command and contrary to her own repeated promises and lette others learne by her example". [1] [2]
Through Sir Mark Guyon's younger daughter, Rachel, who married Edward's younger brother, John Bullock, [7] the Guyon estates at Radwinter and Great Wigborough came into the family and passed by intestacy to Col. John Bullock.
Edward and Mary's son, Josiah Bullock (1697-1752), attempted to follow his maternal grandfather's example and make his fortune in trade. He spent most of his life in London – in Highgate and the City – as a Royal Exchange Director and Hambro Merchant. Though a local Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant, he neglected his duties at Faulkbourne. [1]
Josiah Bullock married Hannah, daughter of Sir Thomas Cooke, M.P. [8] Their son, John, had his portrait painted by Thomas Gainsborough. He was a Colonel in the East Essex Militia. Educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, at the age of 23 he embarked on a parliamentary career that lasted 56 years and culminated in him becoming Father of the House. He took a keen interest in Faulkbourne and undertook many improvements to the Hall and grounds. A patron of the arts, he founded a wide-ranging collection of pictures. Whilst his wife Elizabeth [9] [10] was heiress to large slum estates in Southwark (17 acres containing 400 houses), he exhausted a large part of her fortune on parliamentary life. She died in 1793 and they had no children. [1] He left his estates on his death, in 1809, to Jonathan Josiah Christopher Watson, son of his elder sister, also named Elizabeth, who had married Jonathan Watson of Ringhall in Suffolk.
Jonathan Josiah Christopher Watson (1749-1832) succeeded to the Essex estates directly from his uncle in 1809 and, in the following year, took the surname Bullock, rather than Watson, under Royal Sign Manual, subject to some £24,000 of debt. He was a Major in the East Essex Militia. [2]
His eldest son, also Jonathan (1773-1860), served in the 1st Dragoon Guards and as a Justice of the Peace, Deputy Lieutenant and, in 1837, High Sheriff of Essex. He did not marry an heiress but a daughter of the Vicar of Witham. [2] His brother, John (1775–1844), became Rector of Radwinter and Faulkbourne and was the great-grandfather of Guy Bullock.
After Jonathan's death in 1860, the pressure of social and economic change in the 19th century brought the beginnings of the family's decline at Faulkbourne. Properties began to be sold when the Rev. Walter Trevelyan Bullock (1818-1878) inherited the estates, his three elder brothers having predeceased him, leaving only Faulkbourne and Radwinter in the family. [2] He had been Rector of Faulkbourne until 1852 before moving to Devon, yet after only a year he returned to Faulkbourne on the death of his brother. He later lived mainly in London and, on a visit to Faulkbourne, accidentally poisoned himself and died in 1878. [2] His sister, Margaret Emily Bullock (1822-1913), married the Rev. Hon. Llewellyn Charles Robert Irby, the youngest son of George Irby, 3rd Baron Boston.
Debrett's records that Walter Trevelyan's daughter, Edith Anne Bullock (died 1929), was the granddaughter-in-law of George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1852-1855. [11]
Walter Trevelayan's eldest son, Walter Henry Bullock (1861-1924), was the last of the Faulkbourne senior male lineage. During his youth, his trustees carried out extensive repairs to the Hall but he was never permanently in residence there. [12] In 1892 most of the tapestries and pictures, such as the fitted Aubusson tapestries and Gainsborough's portrait of Col. John Bullock, were sold. [1] [2]
Faulkbourne Hall and the surrounding estate were purchased in 1897 by Andrew Motion, who shortly thereafter sold them to Christopher William Oxley Parker.
Walter Henry Bullock died in 1924. His son, Henry Talbot Bouverie Bullock, had only a daughter. Therefore, the family line passed to Walter's brother, the Rev. Llewellyn Christopher Watson (1886-1936). He married Cecil Augusta Margaret Spearman, whose mother, Lady Maria Louisa Spearman (1837-1917), was the daughter of Thomas FitzMaurice, 5th Earl of Orkney, the great-nephew of the former prime minister William Petty-FitzMaurice, 1st Marquess of Landsdowne. [14] [15]
The line passed to their eldest son, Walter Llewellyn Bullock (1890-1944), an academic and promoter of Italian studies at the Universities of Chicago and Manchester, where he was Serena Professor of Italian.
The line then passed to Llewellyn's second son, Sir Christopher Bullock, K.C.B, C.B.E.(1891-1972), who served as Permanent Under-Secretary at the British Air Ministry from 1931 to 1936. Appointed at the age of 38, he remains one of the youngest civil servants to have headed a British government department. [16] [17] In 1917 he married Barbara May Lupton, the second cousin of Olive Middleton (née Lupton), great-grandmother of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. It was reported in 2016 that "Olive Middleton volunteered as a nurse with her relative Lady Bullock" - a social science graduate - during World War I. [14] [18]
Sir Christopher was succeeded by his elder son, Richard Henry Watson Bullock C.B., [19] (1920–1998) who was Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry and a consultant for Faulkbourn Consultancy Services. [20]
Richard, in turn, was succeeded by his son, the actor and art historian Osmund Bullock, [21] the current head of the family.
Sir Christopher's younger son, Edward Anthony Watson Bullock (1926-2015) served in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and married Jenifer, elder daughter of Sir Richmond Palmer.
Sir Walter Mildmay was a statesman who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer to Queen Elizabeth I, and founded Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Marquess of Lansdowne is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1784, and held by the head of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family. The first Marquess served as Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet, was an English economist, merchant and politician. He was an economist proponent of mercantilism and governor of the East India Company. He led the company in the Anglo-Mughal War.
Andrew Windsor, 1st Baron WindsorKB (1467–1543), was a Member of Parliament, English peer, and Keeper of the Wardrobe, knight banneret and military commander.
Faulkbourne is a small settlement and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England, about 2 miles (3 km) northwest of Witham. The population at the 2011 Census was included in the civil parish of Fairstead. The name of the village is said to be derived from the Old English words "falk" or "folc" and "burn".
Sir John St John, 1st Baronet of Lydiard Tregoze in the English county of Wiltshire, was a Member of Parliament and prominent Royalist during the English Civil War. He was created a baronet on 22 May 1611.
Richard Rich was a London mercer, and Sheriff of that city in 1441.
Sir Christopher Llewellyn Bullock, KCB, CBE, a prominent member of the Bullock family, was Permanent Under-Secretary at the British Air Ministry from 1931 to 1936. Appointed at the age of 38, he remains one of the youngest civil servants to have headed a British government department.
Sandleford is a hamlet and former civil parish, now in the parish of Greenham, in the West Berkshire district, in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England. It is located approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of the town of Newbury.
Lady Elizabeth Danvers née Neville, later Lady Elizabeth Carey by remarriage (1545/50–1630) was an English noblewoman. She was the mother of Sir Charles Danvers, executed in 1601 for his part in the rebellion of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and of Sir John Danvers, one of the commissioners who tried King Charles I and signed the King's death warrant.
Sir Edward Barkham was an English merchant who was Lord Mayor of London in 1621. He derived from the Barkham family of South Acre, Norfolk.
Members of the Basset family were amongst the early Norman settlers in the Kingdom of England. It is currently one of the few ancient Norman families who has survived through the centuries in the paternal line. They originated at Montreuil-au-Houlme in the Duchy of Normandy.
Colonel John Bullock was an English politician and military officer who sat in the British House of Commons from 1754 to 1810, representing the constituencies of Maldon, Steyning and Essex. Born in Faulkbourne, Essex, he was a prominent member of the Bullock family whose long service in the British Parliament resulted in the title of father of the House being bestowed on him.
Sir Edward Bullock of Faulkbourne (c.1580–1644) was an English landowner who was knighted by King James I. He was a prominent member of the Bullock family and the owner of Faulkbourne Hall in Essex.
Professor Walter Llewellyn Bullock was a prominent member of the Bullock family, an English scholar, critic, teacher, lecturer and promoter of Italian Studies at the Universities of Chicago and Manchester where he was Serena Professor of Italian. He was founder, in 1937, and general editor of Italian Studies as the annual journal of the Society for Italian Studies. He left his exceptional collection of over 5,000 books and several hundred pamphlets including over 2,600 volumes printed between 1500 and c. 1625 and important critical editions of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto, and Torquato Tasso, as well as many works on the Questione della lingua to the John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester.
Sir William FitzWilliam, of Windsor, Berkshire, was an Irish courtier and Member of Parliament in England. He was Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Edward VI of England; Deputy Chancellor of Ireland; Lieutenant of Windsor Castle; Keeper of Windsor Great Park and Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire.
James Calthorpe of Ampton who was Sheriff of Suffolk, in 1656, during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, by whom he was knighted at Whitehall, 10 December, in the same year.
Sir Hugh Smithson, 1st Baronet of Stanwick St John, North Yorkshire, was a Royalist supporter during the Civil War for which he was rewarded with a baronetcy by King Charles II on the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. His great-great-grandson was Sir Hugh Smithson, 4th Baronet (1715-1786), who having inherited by his marriage half of the great Percy, Earl of Northumberland, estates, and the title 2nd Earl of Northumberland by special remainder from his father-in-law Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset (d.1750), changed his surname and arms to Percy and was created in 1766 1st Duke of Northumberland.
Hunningham is a medieval manor located in the West Midlands (region) of Warwickshire, England. Its location is just over three miles northeast of Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. The River Leam – located on Hellidon Hill in Northamptonshire, which then flows through rural Warwickshire, including the town of Leamington Spa – forms the Manor boundary between north and west. The Fosse Way crosses the center of the town diagonally and here is a perfectly paved road. The southeast boundary of Hunningham is formed by the River Itchen, a tributary of the Leam. Today the Manor includes the parish of Hunningham. The history of the Manor of Hunningham is of great interest because it has been documented continuously for a thousand years, from the time of the Domesday Book to the present day. However, it is assumed that the creation of the Manor of Hunningham dates back to the 9th century, but there are currently no documents to prove this.
Thomas Lowndes Bullock, FRS was an English author, colonial administrator, academic and sinologist who served as Professor of Chinese at the University of Oxford. He was the father of diplomat and explorer Guy Bullock.
Rev W. T Bullock....Lord of the Manor of Faulkbourne....
... the name of John Bullock, Esq. occurs, Josiah bullock who married Hannah, youngest dau. of Sir Thomas Cooke, Knt. and had issue, - John [Bullock] , his heir...
...Granddaughter of the late Rev. the Hon. Douglas Hamilton Gordon, 3rd son of 4th Earl [of Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, Prime Minister from 1852-1855]: ... of the late Douglas George Hamilton - Gordon, O.B.E .. J.P., b. 1852, d. 1938: married, 1st, 1877. Edith Anne [Bullock], who d, 1929, dau, of Rev. W.T. Bullock of Faulkbourn Hall, Essex...
... Parker.. married 1907, Emily Margaret Joan, eld. d.(daughter) of W. (Walter) H. Bullock of Faulkbourne ...
Successful College Balls and Concerts. ROUND OF GAIETIES....addition to the number of May Week visitors, and the various college concerts and balls, as well the outdoor events...attended by...Trinity College First and Third Boat Club Ball... Miss Darnton...Miss Davidson...Miss Lonsdale, Miss Lucas, Miss Lupton...Miss Martin, Miss Maloney, Mrs Middleton, Miss Middleton, Miss Marquis...Lady Napier...
Olive volunteered as a nurse with her relatives Baroness Airedale, left, and Lady Bullock, right
Consultant, Faulkbourn Consultancy Services....of late Sir Christopher Bullock, KCB, CBE and Lady Bullock (née Barbara May Lupton);