BULL, Daniel (c.1727-91), of Calne, Wilts.

Daniel Bull’s father was steward to John and William Petty, Lords Shelburne, and apparently also to William Northey and Thomas Duckett. He managed elections at Calne, and on 7 Feb. 1763 boasted to Lord Shelburne that he and his friends ‘have carried every point for more than the last thirty years’.Lansdowne mss. In Bute’s list of December 1761 Daniel Bull is described as ‘inclinable to Lord Shelburne but elected against his Lordship’s will by his father,—Bull who is steward to his Lordship and Mr. Northey’.

At first Daniel Bull made approaches to Newcastle. William Levinz wrote about him, 16 Dec. 1761:Add. 32932, f. 210. ‘I know he is perfectly well-inclined to your Grace, and that he is a most worthy man.’ On 7 Jan. 1762 he communicated a commission from Bull:Add. 32933, f. 94. ‘he ... has withstood ... strong solicitations from others, resolving from the first to make your Grace the only object of his attachment.’ On 6 Feb. 1762: Bull ‘is become very impatient: from a notion that he is not an object worthy of your consideration’.Add. 32934, f. 215; for fuller excerpts from these letters see L. B. Namier, ‘Thomas Duckett and Daniel Bull, Members for Calne’, Wilts. Arch. Mag. xliv. 3-4. But on 19 Aug. Shelburne wrote to Henry Fox that Bute had been very obliging in assisting him essentially in regard to Calne:Ilchester, Letters to Hen. Fox, 157.obviously by appointing Bull to an office which would vacate his seat; his actual appointment as commissioner of taxes was deferred till the Christmas recess, presumably so as not to lose a vote for the peace preliminaries.

Bull’s father continued to act as Shelburne’s election manager for Calne, assisted and succeeded by Daniel, who was given further offices during Shelburne’s term as secretary of state, 1766-8. Between 1766 and 1769 Daniel Bull sold to Shelburne three farms near Calne for £11,134; and in 1789 his lands in Calne parish were still valued at nearly £9,000.

He died 29 Mar. 1791.