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George Bullen

Clonakilty, Ireland, 1816 - 1894, London

BiographyLC name authority rec. n82236321
LC Heading: Bullen, George, 1816-1894

found: Caxton Celebration (1877 : London, England). Catalogue of the loan collection of antiquities, curiosities, and appliances connected with the art of printing ... 1877: p. xi (Geo. Bullen) p. xiii (George Bullen, Esq., F.S.A., keeper of the printed books, British Museum)

Biography:

Bullen, George (1816x18–1894), librarian, was born in Ireland, probably at Clonakilty, co. Cork. He is said to have been born on 17 or 27 November 1816 or 1817, but his tombstone records that he was seventy-six when he died in October 1894. He was educated at St Saviour's Grammar School, Southwark, London, and spent some time as a private tutor of the classics. In January 1838 he became a supernumerary assistant in the department of printed books in the British Museum, and thus inaugurated a connection with the museum which lasted for more than half a century. At the date of his appointment the institution was undergoing several changes. Antonio Panizzi had just been made keeper of printed books, the demolition of the old Montagu House was about to begin, and part of the buildings in Bloomsbury which had been erected on the site of its garden were ready for the reception of the library. Bullen's earliest work was to assist in the arrangement of the books on the shelves in the new premises. In the following year he took part in the preparation of the catalogue of the library which the trustees had resolved to prepare. Only one volume of this edition was printed; it was published in 1841 and covered the letter A. To this folio volume Bullen contributed the article on Aristotle, which filled fifty-six columns. Although Panizzi prevented any more volumes being printed, because he insisted that the whole catalogue must be revised before it was sent to the press, work on the new version continued. Forty years later the enterprise of printing the museum catalogue was resumed, and was then carried through successfully.

In 1849 Bullen was made a permanent assistant in the library. In 1866 he was promoted, in succession to Thomas Watts, to one of the two posts of assistant keeper in the department; he also became superintendent of the reading-room. Bullen's genial temper gained him popularity in this role. In 1875 he succeeded W. B. Rye in the higher office of keeper of printed books, and thus became chief of the department which he had first entered thirty-seven years earlier. During his fifteen years as keeper the great task of printing the museum catalogue was begun, in 1881; but this was despite his opposition, and because of pressure from Edward Bond, the principal librarian, and Richard Garnett, one of the assistant keepers of printed books. Bullen was much more interested in the Catalogue of the English Books in the Library Printed before 1640 (3 vols.), which was compiled under his supervision and published in 1884. An index of the printers and publishers whose productions were noticed in the text is a valuable feature of the work. Bullen retired from the keepership of printed books in 1890, and was succeeded by Richard Garnett.

Although no scholar of a formal type, Bullen was much interested in literary research, and throughout his life he devoted much time to literary work. He was a frequent contributor to The Athenaeum; he wrote articles in 1841 for the Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; and he compiled in 1872 a Catalogue of the Library of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. His bibliographical skill was probably displayed to best advantage in his Catalogue of the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which appeared in 1857. In 1877 he helped to organize the Caxton celebration at South Kensington, and edited the catalogue of books exhibited there.

In 1883 Bullen arranged in the Grenville Library at the British Museum an exhibition of printed books, manuscripts, portraits, and medals illustrating the life of Martin Luther, and prepared a catalogue with a biographical sketch. In 1881 he prefixed a somewhat unsatisfactory introduction to a reproduction by the Holbein Society of the first printed edition of the Ars moriendi (c.1465) in the British Museum; and in 1892 he edited a facsimile reprint (in an issue limited to 350) of the copy, then recently acquired by the museum, of the Sex quam elegantissimae epistolae edited by Peter Carmelianus, and printed by Caxton in 1483.

Bullen was a vice-president of the Library Association, and took a prominent part in many of its annual congresses. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 11 January 1877; the University of Glasgow conferred on him the honorary degree of LLD in 1889; and he was created CB in 1890. Bullen was twice married: his first wife was Eliza Mary Martin, who died in 1887; his second wife's name is unknown. With his first wife he had at least two sons, one of whom, Arthur Henry Bullen (1857–1920), edited Elizabethan works. He died at his house, 62 Abingdon Road, Kensington, on 10 October 1894, and was buried in Highgate cemetery on 15 October.

Sidney Lee, rev. P. R. Harris
Sources The Times (13 Oct 1894) · The Athenaeum (13 Oct 1894) · The Library, 6 (1894), 367 · personal knowledge (1901) · d. cert.
Archives BL · BM · Holborn Library, Camden, London, corresp. :: U. Edin. L., letters to J. Halliwell-Phillips · UCL, letters to Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
Likenesses photograph, BL · wood-engraving (after photograph by Barraud), NPG; repro. in ILN (20 Oct 1894)
Wealth at death £3772 18s. 9d.: probate, 29 Oct 1894, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
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Sidney Lee, ‘Bullen, George (1816x18–1894)’, rev. P. R. Harris, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2055/view/article/3912, accessed 29 Oct 2015]

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Last Updated8/7/24

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