Author: Bulwer, William Henry Lytton Earle
Biography:
BULWER, William Henry Lytton Earle, later Baron Dalling and Bulwer (1801-72: ODNB)
This database includes two anonymous works that are attributed to Bulwer: Ode on the Death of Napoleon (1822) and To-day and Yesterday (1824). Ode is dedicated to Bulwer’s younger brother, Edward George Lytton Bulwer (q.v.), “by one who hopes that, in treading the same path, he may ever be united with him by the firmest bonds of friendship and affection.” He was born at Baker Street, Portman Square, London, on 13 Feb. 1801, the second son of General William Earle Bulwer (1757-1807) and his wife Elizabeth Barbara Lytton (1778-1843). They had married in London on 1 June 1798. He was baptised at St. Marylebone on 9 May 1801. Known as Henry, he was raised by his maternal grandmother in London and attended a school in Sunbury before entering Harrow school in 1814. He was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on 24 June 1820 but, after a lingering illness, he migrated to Downing College in 1822. He did not take a degree—he preferred socialising and gambling to studying—and he entered the army in 1824. He decided in 1827 to join the diplomatic service and served in Berlin, Vienna, The Hague, Brussels, and Paris. He entered parliament as an MP in 1830 and, in sequence, represented Wilton (Wiltshire), Coventry (Warwickshire), and Marylebone (London). He rejoined the diplomatic service in 1837 and served at Brussels, Constantinople, Paris, Madrid, Washington, and Florence. He married Georgiana Charlotte Mary Wellesley (1817-78), a niece of the Duke of Wellington, on 9 Dec. 1848; the marriage was unhappy and there were no children. Bulwer retired as a diplomat in 1865 and in 1867 he was elected MP for Tamworth in Staffordshire; he held this position until 1871 when he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dalling and Bulwer in Norfolk. He lived at 53 Upper Brook Street in London but died in Naples on 23 May 1872, leaving an estate of under £5000. At the time of his death he was working on a three-volume biography of Palmerston which was issued posthumously; his other publications include An Autumn in Greece (1826), The Monarchy of the Middle Classes (1836), and Historical Characters (1868). (ODNB 3 Sept. 2023; ACAD; ancestry.co.uk 3 Sept. 2023) SR
Other Names:
- H. L. Bulwer