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[From Wikipedia]
Charles Bullen was a highly efficient and successful naval officer who served in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and distinguished himself at the Glorious First of June, the battle of Camperdown and the battle of Trafalgar.
He was born in Newcastle in 1769 but spent much of his early childhood in Weymouth, Dorset. His father, John Bullen, also served in the Royal Navy and was the Surgeon General on the North American Station between 1779 and 1781. Charles' mother, Ruth (née Liddel), was a cousin of Lord Eldon who served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain between 1801 and 1806 and again between 1807 and 1827. Richard Bullen, Charles younger brother by 10 years, became a captain in the Scots Greys, dragoons. Charles entered the navy when he was just ten years old as a volunteer (1st class) aboard the 64 gun, third rate, HMS Europe. [From findagrave.com]
He entered the navy Feb. 16, 1799, as first-class volunteer aboard the Europe 64, the flag-ship of Vice-Adm. Marriot Arbuthnot; in which ship, and in the Renown 50, the Loyalist sloop, and the Halifax, he took part in various operations on the American coast, including the reduction of Charlestown. In 1786 he joined the Culloden 74, employed on Channel service; and in 1789 he removed to the Leander, bearing the flag in the Mediterranean of Rear-Adm. Joseph Peyton. On the 9th Jan. 1791 he there became Acting-Lieutenant of the Mercury 28, and on the 9th Aug. following was confirmed into the Euridice 24. After twelve months' half-pay, he was again appointed to the Culloden on the 22nd Dec. 1792, and was engaged in the unfortunate attack on Martinique in April,
1793. In 1794 he was appointed to the Ramillies, and witnessed Lord Howe's three actions of that year; in 1796 to the Oberyssel 64, the flag-ship of Admiral Peyton; and in 1797, as first Lieutenant, to the Monmouth 64, in which his life was nearly sacrificed during the mutiny at the Nore. He was present at the battle of Camperdown in the same year, and for his spirited conduct on that occasion, and afterwards, when he took possession of the Delft, one of two 50-gun ships that had struck to the Monmouth, and remained in her, out of humanity to the wounded, until the very moment of her going down, when he sprang into the sea, and was picked up, he was promoted to the rank of Commander, Jan. 2, 1798. On the 28th June, 1801, he was appointed to the Wasp 18, in which he proceeded to the coast of Guinea, where his important protection of the colony of Sierra Leone, then threatened by a powerful combination of native chiefs, procured him a post commission dated April 29, 1802. After proceeding to the West Indies, he returned home in the following August. From the 8th May to the 3d June, 1803, he held the temporary command of the Minerve frigate, off Cherbourg,and during that short period he captured 23 French merchantmen, and detained a frigate of the largest class. He was next appointed to the Plymouth district of Sea Fencibles; and in November following to the command of a flotilla fitting out in the Thames. On the 8th May, 1804, he was selected by Lord Northesk to be his flag-Captain in the Britannia 100, off Brest: and he served at the battle of Trafalgar, for which he received the gold medal. He brought home three of the prizes, and was paid off in June, 1806.
On the 7th Sept. 1807, he was appointed to the Volontaire 38, in which he conveyed the Duke of Orleans and his brother the Comte Beaujolais to Malta; and commanded, occasionally, the in-shore squadron off Toulon. At the commencement of the war between France and Spain, he undertook an overland expedition from Fez to Tangiers, and succeeded in inducing the court of Morocco to supply the Spanish patriots with provisions. In 1809 he effected the capture of the island of Pomegue near Marseilles, and the destruction of Fort Rioux, mounting 14 guns, near Cape Croisette; and on the 23d Oct. 1809, when off Cape St. Sebastian, he signalled to Lord Collingwood the information which led to the pursuit by Rear-Adm. George Martin, of the two French line-of-battleships Robuste and Lion,which were destroyed, and the subsequent capture, in the bay of Rosas, by the boats of a squadron under Capt. Benj. Hallowell (whom he ably assisted by his zeal and experience,) of a convoy of three armed and seven merchant vessels. In 1810 and 1811, at the beginning of which latter year he was removed to the Cambrian 40, he was engaged, with a small squadron under his command, in a series of active cooperations with the Spaniards on the coast of Catalonia; where he took, in the latter year, the towns of St. Philon and Palamos, of which he destroyed the batteries and embarked the guns. He also captured, at Cadaques, nineteen merchant vessels, and was severely wounded while serving on shore in a battery at Selva. He quitted the Cambrian on the 9th Dec. 1811.
On the 5th Nov. 1814, Capt. Bullen was appointed to the Akbar 50, in which he superintended, under Sir T. B. Martin, the partition of the fleet and naval stores at Antwerp, and was afterwards on the Halifax station, until paid off, Jan. 1,1817.
On the 12th Dec. 1823, he hoisted a broad pendant on board the Maidstone 42, as Commodore on the coast of Africa; and between that period and the expiration of his term of service in 1827, he co-operated with Lieut.-Colonel Sutherland during the Ashantee war, and restored nearly 10,000 slaves to liberty.
On the 22nd July, 1830, he was appointed Superintendent of Pembroke dockyard and Captain of the Royal Sovereign yacht, both which appointments he held until advanced to the rank of Rear-Admiral, Jan. 10, 1837. He became a Vice-Admiral Nov. 9, 1846.
Sir Charles Bullen was nominated a Companion of the Bath in June, 1815; a Knight Commander of the Hanoverian Guelphic order, Jan. 13,1835, and dubbed a Knight Bachelor on the 25th of the following month: and he was advanced to the grade of a Knight Commander of the Bath, April 18, 1839. A good-service pension of 300/. was assigned to him, July 12, 1843.
He married, in 1791, Miss Wood, a distant relative of his own; and by that lady, who died July 10, 1842, he had issue.
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1768 - 1853 (84 years)
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