Details of Sculptor

Surname

Bullock

Alternative Surname

First Name

Elizabeth

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

c1828

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Elizabeth Bullock (née Smallwood) was the proprietress of a wax museum and model shop and was the mother of George and William Bullock. She held exhibitions of waxworks in Birmingham from 1794 onwards. The first exhibition opened ‘in a commodious Room, in Mr Mansell’s late Tea Warehouse, nearly the opposite of New Street’ on 27 May 1794 (Aris’s Birmingham Gazette [ABG]). The ABG carried a notice of its reopening two years later at 87 Bull Street (16 May 1796) and, after a period in Lichfield, Mrs Bullock announced in November 1796 that it was ‘again opened for the inspection of the public, at her House, No. 29 Bull Street Birmingham, near the Bank’ (ABG, 14 November 1796). She continued to advertise her exhibition from this address until 1798, periodically taking it to other towns. The waxes on show included portraits of members of the British Royal Family; the French Royal Family based on original models by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon; Tippoo Sultan and his two sons; Catherine, Empress of Russia; the late Earl of Chatham; and Benjamin Franklin. Later additions to the display included ‘LIKENESSES of the PRINCE and PRINCESS of WIRTEMBERG’ and of ‘the poet FREETE of this Town’ (ABG, 29 May 1797).
In 1797 Mrs Bullock took one of her sons, probably George, briefly into partnership and began to diversify her activities, announcing on 27 March 1797 the opening of a modelling class at ‘Bullock and Son’s Modelling and statuary warehouse, no 29 Bull Street Birmingham’ (ABG). In 1798 she offered a wide range of services that foreshadowed the activities of both George and William Bullock: ‘Likenesses modelled from one to twenty Guineas each, Miniature[s] painted. All Kinds of Statue Figures for Halls, Stair-cases, and Pleasure Grounds; Figures with Lamps, Girandoles for Side-boards, &c in Plaister of Paris, Hard Metal, Lead &c. Modelling in all its Branches’ (ABG, 28 May 1798). During the same period she acquired a representation of Napoleon modelled in rice paste, described as ‘one of the first productions of its kind’ and advertised portraits ‘modelled in wax or rice paste’ (ABG, 2 July 1798). A traveller who visited the shop in 1797 wrote, ‘I was highly entertained by the great variety which surrounded me, such as miniature paintings, models in wax, rice paste and plaster of Paris, which for delicacy of finishing surpassed anything of the kind I had ever seen’. He gave a five-minute sitting for his own portrait and a few days later received ‘that which is universally allowed to be a good likeness’ (ABG, 27 November 1797).
She probably died in 1828, as her advertisements ceased to appear abruptly after 30 July that year. She gave no indication that she planned to retire other than announcing a sale of plaster figures four weeks earlier ‘as she intends to decline that Part of her Business’ (ABG, 2 July 1798).
Literary References: Pyke 1973, 21; Bullock 1988, 40-1, 47 n 27