Orders, Decorations and Medals

NAVAL GENERAL SERVICE 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Gluckstadt 5 Jany. 1814 (Geo. Bull, Midshipman), good very fine

Approximately 44 clasps issued for this action. George Stringer Bull was born on 12 July, 1799 at Stanway in Essex. He joined the Royal Navy as a Gentleman Volunteer Second Class at the age of 11 years. He immediately joined the Desiree and served in that ship for the next four years, being promoted Midshipman in 1813. He was pesent at the operations before the fortress of Glucksradt, and the surrender of the same by capitulation on 5 January 1814.

‘Parson Bull of Byerley’

Shortly after the success at Gluckstadt Bull was discharged from the Royal Navy at his own request. Still only 15 years old he intended to take up Holy Orders. He studied for the Church and was ordained but not before offering his services to the Church Missionary Society as a schoolmaster. He spent two years as a missionary in Sierra Leone on the West coast of Africa, during which time his health suffered and he was compelled to return to England. The remainder of his life was devoted to the Church but more particularly Bull will be remembered for his pioneering work in arousing the public conscience against the appalling conditions endured by industrial workers, especially children, in the early part of the 19th Century. The Reverend Bull was the Coadjutor of Messrs. Sadler, Oastler and Fielden in all their efforts for factory regulations and for the mitigation of the severities of the new Poor Law of 1834. In that year the Duke of Wellington said to Mr Richard Oastler, 'the factory king': 'Oastler, that Parson of yours preaches nothing but millowners' duties; he has sent me a sermon full of facts about the factories, but ending on every page with an appeal to the millowners. What do you think of him?' Mr Oastler: 'He ought to be a Bishop, your Grace.' To which the Duke replied, 'He is doing much good; fights at close quarters; but his sermons will never be fashionable.' George Bull died in August 1865 and a memorial was raised to him in St Thomas's Church, Birmingham. He is the subject of two books by John C. Gill, The Ten Hours Parson, 'London 1959, and 'Parson Bull of Byerley,' London, 1963. A copy of the latter book accompanies the lot, together with additional research.