Hastings and St Leonards Observer, Saturday 29 November 1952

MRS. H. J. BULLOCK

Mother of Canon F. W. B. Bullock, former rector of Hollington Church-ln-the-Wood

Mrs Bullock died very peacefully early on Sunday morning at her home, 6. The Uplands. St Leonards, aged 91 years. She had been able to attend a service in church the previous Sunday as usual.

Helen Janetta, daughter o! Frederic Bagshawe and Frances Elizabeth Boss, was born in Cambridge on February 16. 1861. Her first visit to St. Leonards was in June. 1864, shortly after the death of her mother in London, Thence her father removed his home in 1867 to Warrior - square where he practised as a physician till his death in 1912……. Miss Bagshawe attended a small private school in St. Leonards and then went to St. John’s School, then Preston. Brighton, later transferred to Bexhill.

Shortly after leaving school about 1879 she became a teacher in the Sunday School under Miss Gardiner, daughter the Rector of St. Leonards, who was the superintendent of the girl’s department: when the Gardiners left in 1887 Miss Bagshawe succeeded to the superintendent’s position, which she held until her marriage 1901.

For some years she visited a district in Halton parish, generally walking all the way to and from Warrior-square. She was for several years Secretary of the St. Leonards Gleaners’ Union of the Church Missionary Society. Another activity at this period was a Manager of St. Mary-in-the- Castle Church School. On February 11, 1901, at the triennial election of School Board for the Hastings District. Miss Bagshawe received 5,634 votes, thus heading the list of 14 candidates. On December 12 the same year she was married to the Hev. William Charleston Bullock, who had been Rector of Ore since 1897.

Mrs. Bullock’s work in the parish of St. Helen. Ore. included district visiting with magazine distribution, teaching in the Sunday School, runnine branches of the Girls’ Friendly Society and of the Mothers’ Union: she was also an original member of the Ore and Baldslow Women’s Institute In 1929, after the deaths of her husband and also of her stepmother. Mrs. Bullock returned to her old home in Warrior-square Since 1923 she had been Presiding Member the Mothers’ Union for the Rural Deanery Hastings, an office which she retained until 1936. before which date she had been made a Vice-President for the Diocese of Chichester. She was President of the Girls’ Friendly Society Hastings from 1930. President the St. Leonards Missionary Working Party. Secretary of the St. Leonards Maternity Society and a Member the Committee of the Children’s Convalescent Home West Hill, for many years. In 1943 she was made Life Governor of the Church Missionary Society. For 59 years, from 1888 to 1947. she acted as Secretary and Treasurer of a fund to which former nupils of St. John’s School subscribed in aid of a cot at Hangchow Hospital, China.

NEXT - Rev. F. W. B. Bullock