The Reverend James Bulwer (21 March 179411 June 1879) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

collector,

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

, artist and

conchologist Conchology, from Ancient Greek κόγχος (''kónkhos''), meaning "cockle (bivalve), cockle", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is the study of mollusc shells. Conchology is one aspect of malacology, the study of mollus ...

. He was a close friend and patron of the artist

John Sell Cotman John Sell Cotman (16 May 1782 – 24 July 1842) was an English Marine art, marine and Landscape painting, landscape painter, Etching, etcher, illustrator, and a leading member of the Norwich School of painters. Born in Norwich, the son of a si ...

. He is considered to be a member of the

Norwich School of painters The Norwich school of painters was the first provincial art movement established in Britain, active in the early 19th century. Artists of the school were inspired by the natural environment of the Norfolk landscape and owed some influence to the w ...

Life

James Bulwer was born at

Aylsham Aylsham ( or ) is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Bure in north Norfolk, England, nearly north of Norwich. The river rises near Melton Constable, upstream from Aylsham and continues to Great Yarmouth and the North Sea ...

in the English county of

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

, the son of James Bulwer and Mary Seaman, and was

baptised Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...

by his parents on 23 March 1794, at St Michael and All Angels, the town's

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

church.James Bulwer in "Parish registers, 1550-1900", ''FamilySearch''
James Bulwer
. He studied at

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Jesus College was established in 1496 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge, St ...

. During his time at Cambridge he took drawing lessons from the landscape artist

and became a fellow of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

due to his interest in

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

s, one of his three proposers being

William Elford Leach William Elford Leach (2 February 1791 – 25 August 1836) was an English zoologist and marine biologist. Life and work Elford Leach was born at Hoe Gate, Plymouth, the son of an attorney. At the age of twelve he began a medical apprenticesh ...

. In 1818 he was made a

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian denominations, such as the Cathol ...

and in 1822 he became a priest. In 1823 he became

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

of Booterstown in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, moving to

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

in 1831 and St James's,

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road (England), A4 road that connects central London to ...

in 1833. He spent several winters travelling in Spain, Portugal and the

Madeira Islands Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of the Canary Islands, Spain, wes ...

, sometimes in the company of the philosopher and traveller Alfred Lyall. In the spring of 1825 Bulwer collected a specimen of an unknown

petrel Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the phylogenetic order Procellariiformes. Description Petrels are a monophyletic group of marine seabirds, sharing a characteristic of a nostril arrangement that results in the name "tubenoses". Petrels enco ...

in the Madeira Islands. This was described by William Jardine and P. J. Selby in 1828 and given the common name of

Bulwer's petrel Bulwer's petrel (''Bulweria bulwerii'') is a small petrel in the family Procellariidae that is found in tropical and subtropical regions of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is named after the English naturalist James Bulwer. Taxonomy ...

. The petrel genus of ''

Bulweria ''Bulweria'' is a genus of seabirds in the family Procellariidae named after English naturalist James Bulwer. The genus has two extant species, Bulwer's petrel and Jouanin's petrel. A third species, the Olson's petrel, became extinct in the e ...

'' was also named for him. Bulwer left London in 1839 and moved back to Norfolk, becoming curate of

Blickling Hall Blickling Hall is a Jacobean stately home situated in 5,000 acres of parkland in a loop of the River Bure, near the village of Blickling north of Aylsham in Norfolk, England. The mansion was built on the ruins of a Tudor building for Sir He ...

and later of Hunworth. He renewed his acquaintance with Cotman when his sons attended

King's College School King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The s ...

, and several of his sketches of Spain and Madeira inspired Cotman's

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting method"Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the ...

s. His son

James Redfoord Bulwer James Benjamin Redfoord Bulwer (22 May 1820 – 4 March 1899) was an English lawyer and a Member of the British Parliament. He was also a cricketer, and played seven first-class matches for Cambridge University Cricket Club and the Marylebone C ...

became a lawyer and a Member of parliament and also played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

References

* Barbara and Richard Mearns - ''Biographies for Birdwatchers'' (1988)

Bibliography

* *

External links

Works related to James Bulwer
held by the

Norfolk Museums Service Norfolk Museums Service (NMS), formerly Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service (NMAS), is a county-wide museums service that presides over ten museums in Norfolk, operated by Norfolk County Council and headed by the council's Director of Cultur ...

James Bulwer fonds
at the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

, Ottawa, Ontario {{DEFAULTSORT:Bulwer, James 1794 births 1879 deaths People from Aylsham English naturalists British conchologists 19th-century English Anglican priests Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Fellows of the Linnean Society of London