▶Date of birth: 27 September 1846         Place of birth: Soham, Cambridgeshire

▶Father: Alfred Nicholas Bull      Mother: Williamina Alexandria Jane

▶Spouse(s): (1)  Harriet Leah Barnes; (2) Alice Stuart Ramsay     Date(s) of marriage: (1) 3 March 1871; (2) 16 January 1890      Place(s) of marriage: (1) St Simon’s Church, Chelsea; (2) Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican), Schoolmaster, Tutor

▶Lifestory: In his fifty years within the Anglican Church Theodore Fitzgerald Bull never rose above the level of Curate; he mixed his pastoral work with tutoring pupils. Bull was born in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 1846, the second son of Alfred Nicholas Bull, Vicar of Woolavington, Somerset, and his wife Williamina Alexandria Jane (née King). Bull was educated in Torquay and matriculated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1866, BA 1870. Soon after graduating he married Harriet Leah, daughter of Joseph Barnes, in 1871 in Chelsea; the couple had five sons and three daughters.

Bull entered holy orders and was ordained Deacon in 1879, and Priest (both Lincoln) in 1881. Initially he undertook school-teaching, and in 1876 was appointed Second Master of Lincoln Grammar School until 1881, and by 1882 was advertising for private pupils. But from 1879 was also licensed as a “general preacher” in the diocese of Lincoln. Leaving Lincoln, from 1883 until 1886 he served as Curate of Bradley, Yorkshire and also as Second Master of the Huddersfield Collegiate School, after which he advertised for “permanent scholastic or clerical work” in the local newspapers.

He continued the peripatetic career that was to govern his life, and moved south to become Headmaster of Deytheur Grammar School, Montgomeryshire 1886-7, and then Headmaster of Hanley Grammar School, Worcestershire 1887-8, before resuming clerical duties as Chaplain of the Upton-on-Seven Union 1888-91, at the same time again advertising for private pupils. After the death of his wife in 1886 he married again, in 1890, to Alice Stuart, youngest daughter of Major-General John Skardon Ramsay, of the Bombay Army; in the same year he was appointed a Visiting Teacher of Latin at the Church of England Tewkesbury High School for Girls in Gloucestershire.

In 1892 he is recorded as living at 14 Pittville Parade (now 28 Evesham Road), in Cheltenham where, “with the Bishop’s permission” he undertook “Sunday duty” locally. Later in 1892 he moved nearby to 2 Monson Terrace, where again he advertised for pupils he would teach for public examinations, and as a clergyman he was also in temporary charge of the Lane End district of Coleford, Gloucestershire. In 1893 he was licensed Curate of Steeple Langford, Wiltshire before moving to a new post as Chaplain of Salisbury Infirmary from 1896 until 1904; at the time of the 1901 census he was again a widower.

He continued his career as a Curate at Walditch, Dorset 1904-5 and held a number of further curacies 1905-16; he was licensed as Curate of St Thomas, Stourbridge in 1906, as Curate-in-Charge at Lower Slaughter in Gloucestershire in 1907 until at least 1909, as Curate of St Stephen’s, Trowbridge in 1911 (which he left that year for work in Birmingham), as Curate of St Luke’s, Portsmouth 1913-15, and in 1915 as Curate of Somerford-Keynes-with-Sharncote, Gloucestershire.

In 1917 he was Curate-in-Charge at Winterbourne Steepleton and Abbas in Dorset before he was appointed Rector of Brampton, Norfolk, a post he held until his death in Norfolk in late 1921, at the age of seventy-five. His estate at death was sworn at £913 9s 6d.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Upton-on-Severn, Worcestershire      Moved from Pittville to: Monson Terrace, Cheltenham

▶Date of death:  6 November 1921      Place of death: Aylsham, Norfolk

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:        ID: 4011

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden