Thomas Gery Cullum

Career

Sir John Cullum, 6th Baronet (1733–1785), the brother of Thomas Gery Cullum, was known as the 'historian of Hawstead'. His brother and successor Thomas shared his literary inclinations, and became 7th Baronet in 1785. He was a well-regarded writer on science and on botany and a fellow of the Royal Society, Society of Antiquaries of London and of the Linnaean Society.

Cullum's credentials as a scholar were such that he was recommended as a fellow of the Royal Society in January 1787 along with his fellow scholar James Smithson, for whom the later Smithsonian Institution would be named. Cullum also served as Bath King of Arms from 1771 to 1800. He was succeeded as Bath King of Arms by his son John Palmer Cullum, Esq, who served from 1800–1829, which meant that between them the pair served for nearly 60 years.

Perhaps the highest compliment paid to Cullum was that from Sir James Edward Smith, noted English botanist and founder of the Linnaean Society. Smith dedicated his English Flora of 1824 to Cullum thus: "To Sir Thomas Gery Cullum, Bart., whose knowledge and love of natural science entitle him to the respect of all who follow the same pursuit, this work is inscribed in grateful and affectionate remembrance by the Author." Smith's publications had followed a privately printed flora by Cullum, Floræ Anglicæ Specimen imperfectum et ineditum, 1774, which was based on the Linnean system of classification

Sir Thomas Gery Cullum was married to Mary Hanson of Normanton, West Yorkshire, daughter of Robert Hanson Esq. and heiress of her brother 'Sir' Levett Hanson, chamberlain to the Duke of Modena and an authority on European orders of knighthood. Hanson acted as surety for the baptism of his sister's first son John Cullum. (On his death in Copenhagen without an heir, Hanson left his estate, including portraits and mementoes of the Levett and Gargrave families of Yorkshire, to his sister.)

Cullum lived at Hardwick House, a Jacobean house on the site of medieval grazing land for St. Edmundsbury Abbey, which the Cullum family owned from its initial purchase in 1656, by the Royalist Sir Thomas Cullum, 1st Baronet and former Sheriff of London, until 1921. Natives of Suffolk, the 1st baronet had grown rich as a London draper, then fallen out of favour on Cromwell's rise, but returned to favour on the Restoration, when he was rewarded with a Baronetcy.

The house, which included a Venetian indoor riding school and extensive grounds, was demolished in 1921 when the last of the Cullums, George Gery Milner-Gibson Cullum, grandson of the 8th Baronet and High Sheriff of Suffolk, died without heirs.

The grounds and site of the formal gardens and statuary today constitute Hardwick Heath (55 acres (22 ha) of the former Cullum estate turned into public parkland), the West Suffolk Hospital, the grounds of Hardwick Manor and housing developments. The site of Hardwick House itself is a wood bordering some original Cedar and Yew trees.

During the time of their residence at Hardwick House, the Cullum family had maintained an extensive library, and had also taken great interest in the history of the area, including having authored several volumes on the history and antiquities of Hawsted and Hardwick. Following the sale of the Hardwick Estate, most of the Cullum library, the Cullum Collection, was given to the Bury Record Office. An oil portrait descended in the Levett family of Sir Thomas Gargrave, Speaker of the House of Commons, was donated to the National Portrait Gallery in London by the last Cullum baronet.

Sir Thomas Gery Cullum, surgeon, botanist, antiquarian, and writer is buried in the church at Hawstead, Suffolk with many of his ancestors and descendants. Few churches in Suffolk have as many monuments to their dead, say scholars, as the church in Hawstead.

A genus of flowering plant, Cullumia, commemorates the contribution of Cullum and his brother.