James Charles Critchell Bullock (6 September 1898 – 31 March 1953) was best known for his diaries and photographs of an expedition with John Hornby across the Barren Grounds of Canada's

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

Early life

Bullock was born at 81 East Street,

Chichester Chichester ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in the Chichester District, Chichester district of West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher ...

, Sussex, England on 6 September 1898, the oldest son of James Tayler Bullock. He was educated at Cliff House Preparatory School in Southbourne followed by

Sherborne School Sherborne School is a full-boarding school for boys aged 13 to 18 located beside Sherborne Abbey in the Dorset town of Sherborne. The school has been in continuous operation on the same site for over 1,300 years. It was founded in 705 AD by Ald ...

in Dorset from 1913 to 1916. He sat and passed the

Royal Military College Royal Military College may refer to: ;Australia * Royal Military College, Duntroon, Campbell, Australian Capital Territory ;Canada * Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario * Royal Military College Saint-Jean, Saint-Jean, Quebec ;Indi ...

entrance exam with the option to go to a cadet college in India rather than Sandhurst.

Military career

The Indian Cadet colleges, unlike Sandhurst, were a six-month course with mandatory language training. The cadet would qualify for a regular IA commission at the end of training. In 1916 he attended the Cadet College, Quetta, from where he was commissioned a second lieutenant on the Unattached List for the Indian Army on 30 January 1917. He was subsequently appointed to the Indian Army on 14 February 1917 and appointed to the

18th King George's Own Lancers The 19th Lancers is an armoured regiment of the Pakistan Army. Before 1956, it was known as 19th King George V's Own Lancers, which was a regular cavalry regiment of the British Indian Army. It was formed in 1922, by the amalgamation of 18th King ...

which he joined in France in May 1917. During the First World War, he served in the Fifth Cavalry Division in France and Belgium and in the

Desert Mounted Corps The Desert Mounted Corps was an army corps of the British Army during the First World War, of three mounted divisions renamed in August 1917 by General Edmund Allenby, from Desert Column. These divisions which served in the Sinai and Palestine ...

in Palestine and Syria. Bullock was the official cinematographer for

General Allenby Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, (23 April 1861 – 14 May 1936) was a senior British Army officer and imperial governor. He fought in the Second Boer War and also in World War I, in which he led the Britis ...

's arrival in Aleppo. He was an athletic man of 6 feet, 2 inches who not only won boxing competitions at Sherborne School, but later also boxed for the Cavalry Corps. Hunting and photo expeditions led him along the upper Nile and to Kurdistan. After two years in hospital with injuries and various tropical diseases, he retired from the Indian Army, receiving a gratuity, with the rank of Captain in July 1923.

Canada

Later that year "in search of health" he went to Canada, where he met John Hornby with whom he undertook an expedition into and across Canada's Barren Lands. His diaries from that trip were the base of two books: ''Snow Man: John Hornby in the Barren Lands'' (1931) by Malcom Waldron and ''Letters from the Barren Lands'' (2020).

Later life

In 1950, Bullock left England with his family to live in Kenya where he committed suicide on 31 March 1953 and was buried at the City Park Cemetery of Nairobi, Section 11, Lot 95.

References

External links