George Bullock

Lieutenant-General Sir George Mackworth Bullock, (15 August 1851 – 28 January 1926) was an officer of the British Army. He served during the First World War, rising to the rank of lieutenant general, and was also the 108th civil Governor and military Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda.

Early life and education Bullock was born in Warangal, British India, on 15 August 1851, the son of Susannah Juliana née Dennis (c1814—1866) and Colonel Thomas Henry Bullock (c1808—1868), Deputy Commissioner of Berar. He was educated at Cheltenham College, University College, Oxford, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was the younger brother of Frederick Bullock. and attended the Staff College at Camberley in 1880. Promotion to captain followed on 22 February 1882, to major on 29 May 1891, and to lieutenant colonel on 18 January 1897. He was commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment (as the 11th Regiment of Foot, in which Bullock was commissioned, was now known) who were deployed to South Africa for the Second Boer War, He was mentioned in dispatches (including by Lord Kitchener, dated 23 June 1902). The war ended in June 1902, and Bullock left Cape Town on the SS Scot in September, returning home. For his services Bullock was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the April 1901 South Africa Honours list (the award was dated to 29 November 1900) and he received the actual decoration from King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 24 October 1902.

After the sudden death of the chief staff officer in Egypt later the same year, Bullock was appointed to this position with the substantive rank of colonel on 21 November 1902. Staying in Egypt, he became brigadier general commanding Alexandria District in 1904 and general officer commanding (GOC) British Troops in Egypt in 1905. He was promoted to major general in October 1906.

After returning home, he was appointed GOC of the West Riding Division of the Territorial Force (TF) in 1910.

Bullock was appointed Governor and military General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Bermuda, a strategic Imperial fortress colony (now described as a British Overseas Territory) in the North Atlantic Ocean with a disproportionately large garrison, effective 11 May 1912 (with Lieutenant Pyeec Roland Bradford Lawrence, Coldstream Guards, as his Aide-de-Camp).

Bullock is remembered as moving Government House to the centre of Bermuda's social life. The British government saw Bermuda more as a base than as a colony. Since the American War of Independence, the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda had been constructed and served as the headquarters of the Royal Navy in the western North Atlantic, and the large Bermuda Garrison had been built up to defend it. Vast sums had been spent in the 19th century on fortifying the islands, and its governors were appointed almost exclusively from the general officers of the British Army, especially from the Royal Engineers and the Royal Artillery.

Bullock's predecessors had kept a distance from Bermuda's civilian population, but he made efforts to interact socially, opening Government House to prominent Bermudians and visitors, such as US President-elect Woodrow Wilson, for social functions. He also made efforts to take part in the normal social life of the colony.

When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, during the First World War, Bullock was temporarily overseas on leave, having left on the 25 July. The commanding officer (CO) of the 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment (2 Lincolns), based at Prospect Camp, Lieutenant Colonel George Bunbury McAndrew, found himself acting Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda in Bullock's absence, and oversaw the colony's placement onto a war footing. His leave cancelled, Bullock returned to Bermuda on the 7 August.

Bullock's Boys. The first contingent of the BVRC to the Lincolns, training in Bermuda for the Western Front, Winter 1914–15.

A contingent from the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) was detached in December 1914 to train for the Front. It was hoped this could join 2 Lincolns, but when it arrived in England 2 Lincolns was already in France. It was initially attached to the 3rd Battalion, before being attached to the First Battalion (1 Lincolns) on in France as two extra platoons. It was the first colonial volunteer contingent to reach the Western Front when it arrived there in June, 1915. The contingent had trained at Warwick Camp, in Bermuda, over the winter of 1914–1915. As the BVRC still had to meet its obligations as part of the garrison, maintaining patrols and guarding key points around the archipelago, it did not have enough officers to provide an Adjutant to the cadre. Bullock filled this role himself, a job normally performed by a captain. The contingent, as a result, was popularly known as Bullock's Boys.

Bullock retired from the governorship in 1917, An extract from a letter he wrote to his successor as Governor and GOC-in-C Bermuda, General Sir James Willcocks, was published in the 18 September 1917, issue of The Royal Gazette:

Bullock also served as Colonel of the Devonshire Regiment from 1910 to 1921.

Family Bullock married Amy Isabella née Thomson (1854–1952) in 1884; Lady Amy Bullock was invested as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her war work on 27 March 1918.