Thomas Bullaker
English priest
Thomas Bullaker, also known as John Baptist Bullaker, (born at Chichester about the year 1604; executed at Tyburn, 12 October 1642) was an English Catholic priest and member of the Order of Friars Minor. He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1987.
Life
Early life
Contemporary accounts usually give Bullaker's birthdate as 1602 or 1604, although baptismal records suggest that he may have been born in 1598. He was the son of John and Eleanor Bullaker; John Bullaker, a doctor and teacher, was the leader of a local group of recusants. His grandfather, William Bullaker, was also a recusant and schoolteacher, as well as the author of the first English Grammar. Bullaker had one sister, Eleanor, baptized 29 October 1601.
Throughout Bullaker's childhood, his family moved frequently to avoid persecution for their recusancy. Soon after Eleanor's birth, the Bullakers left Chichester for Midhurst, where they lived with the Viscount Montagu. At other times, they lived with the Shelley family in Clapham, or returned to various parts of Chichester.
At an early age, Bullaker was sent to the English College at St-Omer, where he may have studied for some time or simply made a spiritual retreat.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Bullaker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.