William Bullock (collector)

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William Bullock (c. 1773 – 7 March 1849) was an English traveler, natural-history collector, showman, and antiquarian. He built Bullock's Museum, first in Liverpool and later in London, and opened Egyptian Hall for popular exhibitions. About 32,000 items from his collection were auctioned in 1819. Some specimens from his collection helped describe new species, including Merops bulocki and Bullock's oriole (Icterus bullockii), named after him and his son.

Bullock came from a family that ran travelling waxwork shows. He had at least three brothers and began life as a goldsmith and jeweler in Birmingham. He ran a home museum in Sheffield in the 1790s and moved to Liverpool by 1795, where he founded the Museum of Natural Curiosities at 24 Lord Street. In 1801 he published a descriptive catalogue of the collection, which included items brought back by James Cook’s expeditions. He also supplied live and preserved animals to the Earl of Derby.

In 1809 Bullock moved to London. His collection was housed at 22 Piccadilly and, from 1812, in the Piccadilly Egyptian Hall, where it became very popular. In 1816 he bought Napoleon’s carriage from Waterloo and displayed it with paintings, helping to fund a new Roman Gallery. His vast collection was sold at auction in 1819. Some items were later acquired by the Royal Scottish Museum.

In 1810 he briefly figured in a legal case about Sarah Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman shown in England; Bullock had been asked to help stage the show but declined.

In 1821–22, Bullock and his son collected specimens from northern Scandinavia, hiring a Saami family and their reindeer to exhibit at the Egyptian Hall. In 1822 he traveled to Mexico, bringing back artifacts for a new exhibition and later wrote Six Months in Mexico (1824). He made a second Mexico trip with his son and visited the United States in 1827. He attempted to start a utopian community named Hygeia on the Ohio River, but the project was not successful; he sold the land in 1846.

Bullock returned to London by 1843 and died in Chelsea in 1849. He was buried at St Mary’s, Chelsea. His first wife died in 1801; they had a son, William, and a daughter, Anne Elizabeth (born 1800). He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1810, despite some opposition, and was also a fellow of the Horticultural, Geological, Wernerian, and other learned societies, publishing several pamphlets on natural history.