Hands up all those who have heard of William Bullock. My guess is that there are not many of you standing there with one hand in the air and the other clutching your Museums Journal; yet Bullock was one of the most successful cultural impresarios of late Georgian England.
With an ability to find, perhaps even create, the moment at which to capture the public's imagination, he presented a series of blockbusters that drew huge crowds. A showman and master of self-promotion, he built a striking new exhibition space in London's Piccadilly where he introduced innovative styles of display and interpretation.
He catalogued and published prodigiously and travelled extensively. In 1839, a New York paper described him as "one of
the greatest connoisseurs and virtuosos of the age".
Today you need to look hard to find a memorial to William Bullock. When he died there were no obituaries; the vault in which he is buried no longer exists nor does any headstone. Despite his output as a writer, he appeared to leave no papers, journals or diaries.
The Egyptian Hall, which he had built in Piccadilly, was demolished in 1905; the memorial plaque in the hallway of the unremarkable building that replaced it recalls only its use as "Maskelyne and Cooke's House of Mysteries" from 1873-1904.
A search of the Museum of London's website produces only references to the Egyptian Hall's era as a venue for magic shows. History's airbrush can be cruel weapon.
Enter Michael Costeloe, as determined an enthusiast as any forgotten man could ever want. In his meticulous search for information, he tracks Bullock's hectic and crowded life with the tenacity of a bloodhound.
William Bullock began his museological career in Sheffield as the owner of "Bullock's celebrated cabinet of curiosities, the most celebrated and brilliant assemblage of Works of Nature and Art that ever travelled England".
After settling for a time in Liverpool, he took his ever more eclectic collection of 4,000 objects to London via Edinburgh, Hull, Leeds and Bath. It must have been a logistical nightmare and it was probably with some relief that in December 1809 he opened his museum at 23 Piccadilly now with 7,000 "Natural and Foreign Curiosities, Antiquities and Production of the Fine Arts".
The natural history collection was displayed "in a manner entirely new" - in natural settings, in this case a recreated tropical forest. The reviews were enthusiastic and 22,000 people attended in the first month.
Buoyed up by his success, Bullock only had to look across the road, 170-173 Piccadilly, to find a site for a more permanent home for his collection and his imagination.
In 1810 he commissioned the architect PF Robinson to design what became known as the Egyptian Hall, Bullock evidently still strongly influenced by the mania for all things Egyptian which had been sweeping the country.
Here Bullock could expand his novel ideas for display and present a series of ground-breaking exhibitions, including The Egyptian Tomb, which recreated the tomb of Seti I, one of Giuseppe Belzoni's discoveries in the Valley of the Kings; Lapland, A Panoramic View of the North Cape, complete with a family of long-suffering Laplanders and reindeer; and Ancient and Modern Mexico, in which Dorothy Wordsworth found "the live Mexican not the least interesting object".
The Mexico show was in some way the last hurrah of Bullock's museum career. In 1825 his entire collection was up for sale and Costeloe has done his best to track the destination of objects sold. Bullock's subsequent, somewhat chaotic career in Mexico and Cincinnati falls outside the scope of this journal but may account for that small show of hands.
Costeloe is relentless in his efforts to resurrect Bullock's memory, but despite all his considerable efforts to track down the detail of a full and varied life, his hero remains rooted to the page. By the end of the book I seemed to know everything there was to know about Bullock except what kind of man he was.
Timothy Mason is a museum consultant
With an ability to find, perhaps even create, the moment at which to capture the public's imagination, he presented a series of blockbusters that drew huge crowds. A showman and master of self-promotion, he built a striking new exhibition space in London's Piccadilly where he introduced innovative styles of display and interpretation.
He catalogued and published prodigiously and travelled extensively. In 1839, a New York paper described him as "one of
the greatest connoisseurs and virtuosos of the age".
Today you need to look hard to find a memorial to William Bullock. When he died there were no obituaries; the vault in which he is buried no longer exists nor does any headstone. Despite his output as a writer, he appeared to leave no papers, journals or diaries.
The Egyptian Hall, which he had built in Piccadilly, was demolished in 1905; the memorial plaque in the hallway of the unremarkable building that replaced it recalls only its use as "Maskelyne and Cooke's House of Mysteries" from 1873-1904.
A search of the Museum of London's website produces only references to the Egyptian Hall's era as a venue for magic shows. History's airbrush can be cruel weapon.
Enter Michael Costeloe, as determined an enthusiast as any forgotten man could ever want. In his meticulous search for information, he tracks Bullock's hectic and crowded life with the tenacity of a bloodhound.
William Bullock began his museological career in Sheffield as the owner of "Bullock's celebrated cabinet of curiosities, the most celebrated and brilliant assemblage of Works of Nature and Art that ever travelled England".
After settling for a time in Liverpool, he took his ever more eclectic collection of 4,000 objects to London via Edinburgh, Hull, Leeds and Bath. It must have been a logistical nightmare and it was probably with some relief that in December 1809 he opened his museum at 23 Piccadilly now with 7,000 "Natural and Foreign Curiosities, Antiquities and Production of the Fine Arts".
The natural history collection was displayed "in a manner entirely new" - in natural settings, in this case a recreated tropical forest. The reviews were enthusiastic and 22,000 people attended in the first month.
Buoyed up by his success, Bullock only had to look across the road, 170-173 Piccadilly, to find a site for a more permanent home for his collection and his imagination.
In 1810 he commissioned the architect PF Robinson to design what became known as the Egyptian Hall, Bullock evidently still strongly influenced by the mania for all things Egyptian which had been sweeping the country.
Here Bullock could expand his novel ideas for display and present a series of ground-breaking exhibitions, including The Egyptian Tomb, which recreated the tomb of Seti I, one of Giuseppe Belzoni's discoveries in the Valley of the Kings; Lapland, A Panoramic View of the North Cape, complete with a family of long-suffering Laplanders and reindeer; and Ancient and Modern Mexico, in which Dorothy Wordsworth found "the live Mexican not the least interesting object".
The Mexico show was in some way the last hurrah of Bullock's museum career. In 1825 his entire collection was up for sale and Costeloe has done his best to track the destination of objects sold. Bullock's subsequent, somewhat chaotic career in Mexico and Cincinnati falls outside the scope of this journal but may account for that small show of hands.
Costeloe is relentless in his efforts to resurrect Bullock's memory, but despite all his considerable efforts to track down the detail of a full and varied life, his hero remains rooted to the page. By the end of the book I seemed to know everything there was to know about Bullock except what kind of man he was.
Timothy Mason is a museum consultant
By Michael Costeloe
HiPLAM, £38
ISBN-13 978 0 9552406 4 5
HiPLAM, £38
ISBN-13 978 0 9552406 4 5
