Details of Sculptor

Surname

Bull

Alternative Surname

First Name

Thomas

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

- 1750/1

Biographical Details

The son of Henry Bull, goldsmith and citizen of London, he was admitted to the Masons’ Company by patrimony in 1712 and became master in 1746. His yard was in Plum Tree Court, Shoe Lane. He signed a number of monuments, including a fine architectural memorial with a portrait bust of Sir Roger Hill at Denham (3). His monument to Eignon Benyon and his wife at Redbourn (1) has a bust under a draped baldacchino and is closely similar in design to several monuments commemorating members of the Halsey family at Great Gaddesdon, which have been attributed to Giovanni Battista Guelfi and Michael Rysbrack. He is buried at St Helen, Bishopsgate.
Another mason called Thomas Bull was apprenticed to Thomas Crowther in 1725 and made free of the Masons’ Company by 1731 when he took an apprentice called Lissman. He was living in Broad Street by about 1740. A third Thomas Bull was made free by patrimony on 6 October 1748. It is not clear which of these was the mason responsible in 1750 for the London Assurance Building in Birchin Lane (Company's Archives, in GPC).
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 68
Archival References: Masons’ Co, Assistants (c1740); Masons’ Co, Court Book, 1722-51 (29 October 1725, 14 June 1731, 14 June 1746); Masons’ Co, Freemen, fols 5, 7 (8 October 1712, 6 October 1748)