Article

Richard Bulkeley

Published Online July 4, 2007

Last Edited December 14, 2013

Richard Bulkeley. British army officer, provincial secretary of Nova Scotia 1758-92, amateur organist, b Dublin 26 Dec 1717, d Halifax, NS, 7 Dec 1800. He came from London in 1749 as aide-de-camp to Governor Edward Cornwallis at the time of the founding of Halifax.

Bulkeley, Richard

Richard Bulkeley. British army officer, provincial secretary of Nova Scotia 1758-92, amateur organist, b Dublin 26 Dec 1717, d Halifax, NS, 7 Dec 1800. He came from London in 1749 as aide-de-camp to Governor Edward Cornwallis at the time of the founding of Halifax. A wealthy man with a wide cultural background, Bulkeley promoted music in the Charitable Irish Society and at St Paul's Anglican Church (the oldest non-Roman-Catholic church on the Canadian mainland, boasting a beautiful Spanish organ installed in 1765). Bulkeley was a vestryman at St Paul's for many years and was the organist 1767-8 (or, according to the DCB, 1759-60). He was described by Archdeacon Armitage in the Halifax Acadian Recorder (16 Jan 1913) as 'the father of music in English-speaking Canada'.