Bullock Family - F19110

Master F W Bullock

Mrs Jane Bullock and her 15 years old son Frederick sailed for London in the saloon of the City of Adelaide when she left Port Adelaide on 26th December 1866. This was the voyage that featured the well-documented ocean race with the Yatala, and young Frederick’s diary of the three months journey has survived. He had just finished his school-days, and he was going to Britain to make a choice in studying for a profession. During a seven months stay, he and his mother took the opportunity to meet the relatives and friends that Jane had left behind, and to visit several towns as tourists.

Mrs Jane Bullock née Bell (1817-1904) was the daughter of labourer John Bell and his wife Sarah who lived in Middle Street, Great Driffield, Yorkshire and she had been christened in the local Wesleyan Chapel. Frederick’s father John Bullock (1813-1879) had been a cordwainer (bootmaker) in Great Driffield when he married Jane Bell there early in 1839.

Within weeks John and Jane Bullock registered for free passage to South Australia as migrants and in due course they were accepted. The young couple made their way to London, sailed on the Moffatt in late August and arrived at Port Adelaide in mid December 1839.

In Adelaide John founded a solid business as an Auctioneer and Land Agent. He also invested successfully in the Burra copper mine. Five children were born to the marriage, all in Adelaide : Benjamin 1840-1865, Sara (Chapman) 1842-1904, Hannah Jane (Smith) 1847-1918, William Henry (1849-1849) and Frederick William (1851-1936). Jane died at Fullarton in April 1904 aged 86.

Frederick William Bullock (1851-1936), who had been educated at Mr Young’s Adelaide Educational Institution, resolved not to enter a profession and chose to return home from Britain. The only surviving son, he went into his father’s land estate agency business for which he soon displayed a natural aptitude.

In September 1873 he married Harriett Bowen 22, eldest daughter of a wheat and grain merchant, at the Baptist Church in Flinders Street, Adelaide. They lived in Adelaide, then in North Adelaide (first Jeffcott Street then Childers Street), and from 1884 at St Helen’s, a large mansion with lovely gardens on Prospect Road in Prospect. There were eight children : Elma 1874, Harold 1876 who became an electrical engineer, Winifred 1878-1897, Oliver 1880-1901, Royden 1882 who joined the family business, Leonard 1886 who became a pastoralist in Western Australia, Doris 1888 and Hugh 1889-1904.

When Frederick succeeded his father upon his death in 1879, he was well prepared to manage the real estate business. In 1885 he took in as a junior partner Mr J Viner Smith, husband of his sister Hannah, and at one time Mayor of Unley. Renamed F W Bullock & Co, the firm developed into one of the largest auctioneering and real estate concerns in the colony. From offices in Franklin Street, it moved to City Chambers in Pirie Street.

Frederick W Bullock was first elected to the Adelaide City Council in December 1884, then served two terms of three years as an Alderman. In November 1891 he was elected unopposed as Mayor of Adelaide.

His term in office was marked by the visit of Dr W G Grace the world renowned cricketer, the opening of the National Park at Belair, and the new Fire Station in Wakefeld Street. He resisted pressure to nominate for a second term as he found that civic matters took up too much of his time.

Frederick took great interest in the formation of the Australian Natives Association, and he was a very distinguished member of the Masonic fraternity. He served as a Director of the Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society SA, and Deputy Chairman of the SA Mining Association. He was a Justice of the Peace, a Commissioner of the National Park, and Vice-President of the SA Rowing Association.

Capt John Bruce was well known and popular in Adelaide from all the years he had visited on the Irene, the City of Adelaide, and the South Australian. After serving as harbour-master at Newcastle on Tyne, he retired to live near Launceston in Tasmania.

In November 1913, after an absence of 32 years, he returned to Adelaide for an extended visit of some weeks, and stayed at St Helens as the guest of Frederick W Bullock They had first met on that 1867 voyage.

Harriet had died at St Helen’s in 1910 at the age of 57. F W Bullock died there in May 1931 aged 79, and was buried in North Road Cemetery at Nailsworth.