Private Arthur Bullock

1894 - 1919

Service Number 315973

As a tribute and to commemorate the service of Private Arthur Bullock, a bell ringer at this church.  The bell ringers who regularly ring at St Saviours will ring a special quarter peal on Saturday the 24th of February.

It is thought that Arthur learnt to ring at Glemsford in Suffolk and moved to Walthamstow where he began to ring at Saint Saviours. In the Ringing World newspaper of October 1911 an article says that Arthur rang the treble, the lightest bell, to touches of Grandsire Triples and Bob Minor.  The band rang for several weddings over two days. Grandsire and Plain Bob are methods which are predetermined sequences of bells and we still ring them today.

Arthur Bullock was born in Glemsford in Suffolk in 1884.  He was the second child born to Henry and Georgina Bullock.  According to the 1891 census Henry was a labourer and Georgina a silk weaver.  They had four other children, the youngest was only 2 months old.

By the time of the census in 1901, Arthur was the oldest child still living at home. He was sixteen years of age and his trade was a fibre worker.  As most of the neighbours were employed as coconut mat makers, those may have been the fibres that he was working.

By 1909 he had moved to Walthamstow and married Jane Mary Ann Billett.  She and her family were living in the parish of St Saviours. Arthur and Jane had a daughter Jenny, who was born in 1910.  In the 1911 census, Arthur is working as a photo mount cutter and the family were living in Richmond Road.  There are no records which tell us when he joined the army, but we know he belonged to the 2nd/1st, Westmoreland and Cumberland Yeomanry Regiment.

June Gray