Author: Pullen, Philip
Biography:
PULLEN, Philip (b 1761: findmypast.com)
The best and almost the only contemporary witness describes Pullen as “formerly a schoolmaster, afterwards an accountant in London” (Watkins). Both Watkins and Watt describe another publication, Book-Keeping Improved (1803), which was published by subscription but of which no extant copy is on record. He is almost certainly the Philip Pullen born on 11 Apr. 1761 and baptised on 29 Apr. at Thorverton, Devon, son of Elizabeth (Chamberlayne) and Robert Pullen, who had married there in 1751. He married Elizabeth Wilson on 12 Feb. 1783 at St. Mary’s, Chatham, Kent, and they had at least four children, three of them baptised at Thorverton between 1786 and 1789, and a fourth in London in 1803. Pullen became a devoted follower of the false prophetess Joanna Southcott (1750-1814, q.v.), who was also a native of Devon; he may have followed her from Devon to London. No record of his death has been found. Southcott died at the end of 1814; her sect carried on. Watkins included Pullen among “living authors” in 1816 but his evidence is not conclusive. (findmypast.com 25 Nov. 2023; ancestry.com 25 Nov. 2023; Watkins; Watt)