Mary Beatrix Nunns (Bulstrode)

Daughter of Reverend Robert Augustine Luke Nunns and Eliza Phillipa Hall born in 1869, baptised on the 8th of August 1869 in Appledram (or Apuldram) in Sussex

Married Herbert Timbrell Bustrode (1858 - 1911) in 18914 No known children

Married Edward Manico Gull c1914/1915¹

No known children

Best known as 'Beatrix Bulstrode' for her account of a tour in Mongolia in 1913, Mary was the third of ten surviving children of the Reverend Robert Nunns and was brought up in Sussex at Appledram (also known as Apuldrum) and then near Ipswich in Suffolk. At 21 she married Herbert Bulstrode, the stepson of her aunt, who was an Assistant Medical Officer in London (1891 census) and later became a Government Health Inspector. They lived in a block of flats in Kensington, London in 1901.

After her husband's death in 1911, she undertook two trips into Mongolia, the first from Pekin in April and May 1913 and the second from Verkne-Oudinsk on Lake Baikal in July of the same year. The second trip was in the company of Edward Manico Gull whom she was later to marry, but on the first trip she had no European companion. These two trips were the subject of her book "A Tour in Mongolia", published in 1920.

In her book Mary mentions that she had been "travelling in foreign parts for 15 years" prior to her Mongolian trips . She was a Council Member of the Society of Woman Journalists both before and after her Mongolian trips so there are no doubt other writings to be discovered.

Notes

0    I assumed that Beatrix was a widow when she undertook her 'tours' into Mongolia reported in her book.(see note 2). She does not appear as Beatrix Bulstrode in the 1901 survey. However she is 'Mrs' Bulstrode in note 2 and in the introduction to her book.  She notes in her book that she had been travelling in foreign parts for 15 years - i.e. prior to 1901 - and therefore might not have been in England in 1901.  Information from Ray Howgego led me to discover the details of her birth and previous marriage.

1    On March 10th 1914 Mrs Bulstrode read a paper entitled 'A Tour in Mongolia' to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Among the papers of George Ernest Morrison in the Mitchell Library, Sydney,
there is a letter signed Beatrix Manico Gull and dated September 1915. So she must have married between March 1914 and September 1915.

2    In 1920 Methuen published "A Tour in Mongolia" by 'Beatrix Bulstrode (Mrs Edward Manico Gull)'. The introduction says that the book was sent to the publishers just before the outbreak of the first world war and consequently was not published till 1920.

3     http://www.das-klassische-china.de/Reisen/Unterhaltsame%20Uebersicht/indatei2.htm#1913Bul

macht sich Miss Beatrix Bulstrode von Peking aus auf den Weg, um die Wüste Gobi Richtung Urga zu durchqueren. Eine heikle Angelegenheit, denn China liegt mit der Mongolei im Krieg und umherziehende Banditenbanden machen das Land unsicher. Nachdem sie zwei Wochen in Ta-Bol, am Rand der Wüste festsitzt, muß die couragierte Engländerin ihren Plan aufgeben. Nach Peking zurückgekehrt trifft sie Mr. Edward Manico Gull, Angestellter im chinesischen Seezolldienst, "who, like myself, undeterred by the question of risks, was keenly desirous of crossing the Gobi and of visiting Urga." Man beschließt, Urga von Norden her zu erreichen und umfährt die Mongolei über Mukden und Harbin mit der Eisenbahn. Von der sibirischen Grenzstadt Kiachta aus erreichen beide schließlich mit dem Pferdewagen die Hauptstadt der Mongolei. Und noch mehr: Ihren Reisebericht publiziert die Autorin bereits unter Mrs. Edward Manico Gull.

Book Description: 8vo Methuen & Company ., 1920. 1st edition. Frontispiece, 27 plates of 48 photographs, map on endpapers. Blue cloth, rubbed, spotted and slightly shaky. xix+327pp. An excellent account of Mongolia at a critical time in its history by a determined lady traveller. With the Chinese fighting the Mongols she was denied a passport from Peking but went off by herself anyway into Mongolia. Later she reached Urga by way of Siberia with her companion, a Mr Gull 'a fire-eater in the pursuit of political developments'. And, reader, she married him.

The book is very readable and one must admire Beatrix's intrepid journeys.

4    The marriage of Mary Beatrix Nunns and Herbert Timbrell Bulstrode was registered in the district of Samford, Suffolk in the last quarter of 1891 (FreeBMD 4a 1617). Twelve years older than Mary, Herbert Trimbell Bulstrode was a doctor and became a Goverment Health Inspector. Known for his work on Tuberculosis and an investigation of an outbreak of typhoid fever after an oysters meal in Chichester, he also prepared a condemnatory report on health and sanitation in Whitehaven.

The death of Herbert T. Bulstrode at the age of 52 was registered in Kensington in the third quarter of 1911 (FreeBMD 1a 120)

I had thought that Beatrix was most likely to have married after the 1901 census (where she does not appear as Beatrix Bulstrode) and to have been widowed before 1913. This would have explained her independence. She certainly married Edward before 1920.  I was surprised to find she had married as early as 1891.

5    The re-election of 'Mrs Timbrell-Bulstrode, home from her travels in China' to the Council of the Society of Women Journalists was noted in the British Journal of Nursing on November 29, 1913. (http://rcnarchive.rcn.org.uk/data/VOLUME051-1913/page455-volume51-29thnovember1913.pdf)

6    Staying with her aunt Elizabeth and uncle George Bulstrode at St Mary Stoke, Suffolk in 1881. She was to marry Herbert Timbrell Bulstrode, her uncle's son by his first marriage, later that year. George Bulstrode married Mary Timbrell Pierce in St Pancras, London in the last quarter of 1855 (FreeBMD 1b 177) and later Elizabeth Nunns at Ely in the 3rd quarter of 1876 (FreeBMD 3b 887).