William Bulkeley (merchant)

William Bulkeley was a Liverpool merchant, son of Thomas Bulkeley of Anglesey, who financed voyages for slave-trading, privateering, and the Greenland whale fishery. He was apprenticed to Foster Cunliffe, a merchant of Liverpool, in 1731. By 1750 he was prosperous enough to be one of the first pew-holders of .

Biography

Bulkeley was part of a consortium of Liverpool merchants who in 1744 invested in Old Noll which they put to work as a privateer.during the War of the Austrian Succession.
Between 1747 and 1756 he was part-owner of eleven slaving voyages. He also co-owned many other ventures, including from 1749 the ship Golden Lion, captured from the French on the last day of 1744, by HMS Port Mahon,, which was then used as a privateer. Bulkeley and his partner bought her in 1749, and fitted her out for a new career as a Greenland whaler, the first such ship from Liverpool. Under Captain Metcalf she made at least two successful voyages to Greenland. Bulkeley had other interests; he also bought and sold large amounts of tobacco.